168 RIVERBY 



fairly calls one. The soil calls for the plow, too, 

 the garden calls for the spade, the vineyard calls for 

 the hoe. From all about the farm voices call, Come 

 and do this, or do that. At night how the "peep- 

 ers " pile up the sound ! 



How I delight to see the plow at work such 

 mornings ! the earth is ripe for it, fairly lusts for it, 

 and the freshly turned soil looks good enough to eat. 

 Plucked my first blood- root this morning, a full- 

 blown flower with a young one folded up in a leaf 

 beneath it, only just the bud emerging, like the head 

 of a pappoose protruding from its mother's blanket, 

 a very pretty sight. The blood-root always comes 

 up with the leaf shielding the flower-bud, as one 

 shields the flame of the candle in the open air with 

 his hand half closed about it. 



These days the song of the toad tr-r-r-r-r-r-r- 

 r - r . r . r - r . r -r-r-r-r-r is heard in the land. At 

 nearly all hours I hear it, and it is as welcome to 

 me as the song of any bird. It is a kind of gossa- 

 mer of sound drifting in the air. Mother toad is in 

 the pools and puddles now depositing that long chain 

 or raveling of eggs, while her dapper little mate rides 

 upon her back and fertilizes them as they are laid. 

 As I look toward the fields where the first brown 

 thrasher is singing, I see emerald patches of rye. 

 The unctuous confident strain of the bird seems to 

 make the fields grow greener hour by hour. 



May 4. The perfection of early May weather. 

 How green the grass, how happy the birds, how 

 placid the river, how busy the bees, how soft the 



