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THE GUIDE TO NATURE 



right foreground is the wagon home, 

 women preparing the humble meal 

 while an Indian sits in idle but graceful 

 pose looking upon all this strange acti- 

 vity that is to redeem his land from 

 savagery and give it back to civiliza- 

 tion. 



"The second tablature — on the south 

 — tells the story of the threatened de- 

 vastation from the cricket's invasion. 



"A point of mountain and a glimpse 

 of the placid, distant lake are seen. 

 The farmer's fight with the invading 

 host is ended — he has exhausted all 

 his ingenuity and strength in the fight. 

 He is beaten — you can see that in the 

 hopeless sinking of his figure to the 

 earth, his bowed head and listless 

 down-hanging hands from which the 

 spade has fallen. 



"Despair claims him and laughs. 

 With the woman of this tablature it 

 is different. She is holding a child by 

 the hand — through it she feels throb- 

 bing the call of the future — the life of 

 a generation of men and women yet 

 to be. 



"Strange that to woman — man's 

 complement — is given such superior 

 strength in hours of severest trial. 

 Where man's strength and courage and 

 fighting ends, woman's hope and faith 

 and trust seem to spring into newness 

 of life. From her nature she seems 

 able to do this inconsistent yet true 

 thing — to hope against hope, and ask 

 till she receives. 



"I do not know in what school of 

 psychology the sculptor studied his art, 

 but he has certainly been true to the 

 great psychological difference between 

 man and woman. But to return to this 

 woman of the second tablature — she, 

 too, is toil worn, and there is some- 

 thing truly pathetic in her body weari- 

 ness, but her head is raised, — raised to 

 what until now has seemed the piti- 

 less skies ; but now they are filled with 

 the oncoming flocks of sea gulls. Does 

 she watch their coming with merely 

 idle curiosity or vague wonderment? 

 Or does her soul in the strange gull 

 cry hear God's answer to her call for 

 help? God's answer to her they were, 

 these gulls, in any event, as the gulls 

 soon proved by devouring the destroy- 

 er. 



"The third tablature commemorates 

 the Pioneers' first harvest — worthily, 



too. In the background rises Ensign 

 Peak. 



"In the middle background the log 

 house home stands finished ; in the fore- 

 ground, harvesting the golden grain is 

 in progress, both men and women take 

 joyous part. To the right, a mother 

 half-kneeling holds to her full breast a 

 babe, who 'on the heart and from the 

 heart' receives its nourishment, and 

 about her knees another child plays in 

 happy, childish oblivion of toil and 

 care. O, Happy scene of life and joy, 

 'where plenty leaps to laughing life 

 with her redundant horn.' 



"On the fourth tablature is the title 

 of the monument. Fortunately it is 

 simple, and not explanatory — the work 

 of the sculptor tells the story — tells it 

 well and eloquently. Too much narra- 

 tion would have marred it — this is the 

 inscription : 



********* 



" 'SEA GULL MONUMENT * 



* ERECTED IN GRATEFUL REMEMBRANCE * 



* OF THE MERCY OF GOD TO THE * 



MORMON PIONEERS.' " 



The Late Season. 



The extreme backwardness of the 

 spring season this year was the cause of 

 much comment. Its effect upon the 

 birds has been marked in many ways. 

 Migrating birds in general seem to 

 have been far behind their usual time 

 of arrival here in Massachusetts. The 

 Baltimore oriole may be confidently 

 looked for in this vicinity on the eighth 

 of May. the tenth being the latest and 

 the fifth the earliest dates on my rec- 

 ords for the past twenty-three years. 

 This year they arrived on the 

 eighteenth. 



Warblers have been seen and re- 

 ported in unusually large numbers. 

 This may be partly accounted for by 

 the fact that they fed and remained 

 low in the shrubbery, and appeared in 

 yards and about houses and buildings 

 much more than is their custom. The 

 reason for this is that their usual food 

 has been scarce, owing to the unde- 

 veloped condition of the trees and the 

 insects which supply so large a part of 

 their supply. Insects which usually 

 hatch about the first of May were 

 found still in the egg stage on the 

 twenty-eighth. 



