WHEN ORCHARDS BLOOM 21 



the bluebird's plaintive note drops 

 liquidly. The yellow warblers, with 

 cinnamon-streaked breasts, flutter in 

 flocks, like autumn leaves, and in a 

 branchless trunk, hollow and hoary, 

 the white-breasted wood swallows colo- 

 nize. Two catbirds spy an adder by 

 the wall, stretched basking on the 

 stones, and raising an angry cry, they 

 hover and strike at it, and the adder, 

 too numb from its winter sleep to 

 comprehend and exercise its charm, 

 drags itself into a hole. A woodchuck 

 lifts its head above the grass and sniffs, 

 then, half suspicious, it slinks flatly 

 down the pathway to the brook and 

 drinks with little conscious sips. Chip- 

 munks and red squirrels scold and 

 spring from branch to branch, seizing 

 the blossoms to eat the succulent cores, 

 and, if they can, to loot an unwatched 

 nest. And over all the melody and 



