116 LAND OF THE LINGERING SNOW. 



meadow clad in the tender green of freshly 

 sprouting grass was encircled by comfortable 

 farms whose ploughed fields, orchards, elms and 

 scattered buildings framed it pleasantly. A pair 

 of brooks wandered across it, met, pledged eter- 

 nal friendship and passed on united, singing, 

 looking up blue-eyed towards heaven. High in 

 the air white-bellied swallows revelled in the 

 sunlight. The sweet-breathed west wind bore 

 to us the kindred songs of the purple finch and 

 the vesper sparrow, the plaint of the meadow 

 lark, the drumming of the downy woodpecker 

 and the cawing of the crow. In a pine grove 

 near by, the pine-creeping warbler and the chip- 

 ping sparrow contrasted their monotonous repe- 

 titions of a single note, the one giving a smooth, 

 well-rounded trill, the other a sharper, more 

 pointed one. Beyond the meadow and the farms 

 lay a sunny pasture hillside, crossed horizontally 

 by a stone wall, and sparsely marked by pitch- 

 pines and small savins. The sky-line of this 

 gentle slope was curved, drumlin-like. West- 

 ward there was nothing more to see save blue 

 sky and four cowbuntings flying swiftly across 

 it. Where was the tree-crowned rocky summit 

 we had come to conquer ? The redwings an- 

 swered, " Cong-ka-ree, go and see ! " So we 

 strolled onward across the meadow, through the 

 farms and up the slope of the pasture hill. 



