26 In Touch with Nature. 



twig is of so dull and rusty a hue that one can 

 think only of decay and death. But, drawing 

 nearer, a faint blush overspreads it all, and when I 

 stand beneath the tree, every twig bears a roseate 

 blossom that has no lovelier rival in the bowers of 

 June. We stand too far aloof and wait until the 

 new birth is quite accomplished. There has been 

 a potent but unobtrusive force long at work, un- 

 suspected because unheralded by blare of trump- 

 ets ; and we, shutting ourselves from Nature, cry 

 " dreary, dreary," because of lack of knowledge 

 and lack of faith. 



Where the rocks shelter from the wind, and 

 catch the mid-day sunbeams, I turn the heaped-up 

 leaves that have lain since autumn and find green 

 growths are everywhere. Pale spring-beauties are 

 even now in bud, and the purple myrtle offers us 

 its simple flowers as a proof that winter has ceased 

 to kill. The rank leaf-growth of the sassafras is 

 of fresher tint than a month ago, and prince's-pine 

 flourishes even in the shadow of a snow-bank. In 

 the swamps, at the very name of which so many 

 shudder, the skunk-cabbage is well above the 

 ground, and far above them, where there is no 



