6 THE COMING OF SPRING 



country, on a sunny cross-road that led through 

 Lonetown. 



Ah! the silence! Yet after all the deepest 

 quiet is made by the perfect harmony of subdued 

 sounds. Dry leaves scurried along the fences; 

 then the rush of the distant mill stream separated 

 itself from the stillness; next the trickle of a 

 near-by brook that in its spring madness had lost 

 its reckoning for a space and, after turning a low 

 meadow into a pond, gropingly found its rocky 

 pathway through the woods again. Two gray 

 rabbits crossed the road with long leaps, and a 

 light footstep overtook us. It was Time o' Year 

 with his trout pole, emerging from a furry -clawed 

 clump of Pussy Willows, that skirt the meadow, to 

 follow the brook again. 



I ventured to ask him, "Does Arbutus still grow 

 in the woods by the Hollow road?" Dropping 

 his rod so that he rested on it like a staff, he 

 looked at me critically, the shrewd expression that 

 came over his face as he spied my camera and 

 appurtenances changing to one of undoubted satis- 

 faction as he discovered neither spade, trowel, basket 

 or tin box; yet he would not commit himself, and 

 merely said, "Did it use to grow there?" moving 

 on as he spoke. 



