The Jonathan Papers

ellow

ace, and if its place is not a ploughed field in March, I know of no better. But it does not encourage lightness of foot. At an especially big and burly gust of

ost furious description. Let's reform the calendar and put up

where a meadow stretched away, brown with the stubble and matted tangle of last year's grass. Half

k of being a cow now and eatin

he usual masculine command of applicable i

Why not? Does it

cra

ra

touch hay any more, and there isn't en

t up as you went

any f

ing one, I do not need an actual patch of green nibble to set me crazy. The smell of the earth after a thaw, a breath of soft air, a wave of delicious sweetness, in April, in March, in February,-when it comes in January I

the arbutus buds are still tight little green points, when the hepaticas have scarcely pushed open their winter sheaths, while their soft little gray-furred heads are still tucked down snugly, like a bird's head under its wing. Befor

rchard, I came upon an old apple tree just cut down by the thrift of Jonathan's farmer, who has no silly weakness for old apple trees. The fresh-cut wood was moist with sap, and as I bent over it-ah, there it was! Here were my hepaticas, my arbutus, here in the old apple tree

p in all trees, why are not the spring woods full of it? But they are not full of it; it comes only now and then, with tantalizing capriciousness. Do sound trees exhale it, certain kinds, when the sap starts, or must they have been cut or

ways one spot that draws me with a special insistenc

, "let's go to th

there will be more new

ew birds. The old one

the first hepatica

e'll go th

r up the river, we mig

eel as if I particularly ha

you hav

cial. Just p

d be quiet, which is good for us all, especially in the springtime, when there is so much going on in the world, and especially lately, since "nature study" has driven people into being so unceasingly busy when they are outdoors. Opera-glasses and bird books have their place, no doubt, in the advance of mankind, but they often seem to me nothing but more

isible body, so that she might scamper off in sections after all these marvels. For myself, one pair of eyes gives me, I find, all the satisfaction and delight I know what to do with, and I cannot help feeling that, if I had more, I should have less. The same writer speaks of the "maddening" warbler notes. Why maddening? Because, forsooth, there are thirty warblers, and one cannot learn all their names. What a pity to be maddened by a little warbler! And about

yellows and browns. On one side low brown hills enfold it, on the other runs a swift little river, whose steep farther bank is overhung with hemlocks and laurel in brightening spring green. It is a very tiny valley,-one could almost throw a stone across it,-and the whole bottom is filled with waving grass, waist-high, of a wonderful pale straw color; last year's grass, which the winter snows never seem to mat do

ng. There is a little footpath running through it, but I never see any one on it. I often wonder who makes all the footpaths I know, where no one ever seems to pass

es, which can be heard only if one sits down in their midst, very still; the light, purling sounds of the river; the soft gush of water about some bending branch as its tip catches and drags in the shifting current. The winds lose a little of their fie

at does it. For it is the bluebird's valley as well as mine. There are other birds there, but not many, and it is the bluebird which best voices the spirit of the place. Most birds in the spring imply an audience. The song sparrow, with the lift and the lilt of his song, sings to the universe; the red-wing calls to all the sunny world to be

ing that I find nowhere else so well. Its

ier movement so

nds and

a memory-a mood that holds-a certain poise of spirit that comes from a sense of the largeness and sweetness and sufficiency of