CHAPTER IX 



HOBNOBBING WITH THE THICKET BIRDS 



THE oriole did it. A flame-coated fellow, 

 just arrived from the Southland, glinted 

 from the greening top of the big poplar, 

 then sang his sweet, lusty song, and after hastily 

 prodding his needle-tipped beak into a mass of 

 catkins and tearing them boisterously, he 

 flitted to another tree and sang again — sang 

 that it was summer once more, or at least it ought 

 to have been. And if the signs of the season 

 spoke truly, he was not far adrift. For on the 

 poplars, the staminate catkins, their duty ended, 

 were withered and falling, and the green seed- 

 tassels were twinkling airily; the pale soft tints 

 of budding foliage glimmered here and there, 

 and the air was pungent with the tangy smell of 

 the gummy buds of the black poplar, while along 

 the edge of the thicket, the saskatoon and red 

 cherry blossoms were bursting out in fragrant 

 mounds of whiteness. 



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