8 



THE COMING OF SPRING 



have less landscape value therefore than the flowers 

 of Summer and Autumn that crowd the fields and 

 march up to the roadsides to demand attention. 



The first three to appear, sometimes in rapid 

 succession and sometimes together, precede even 

 their own leaves, the Skunk Cabbage 

 having its rank flowers enclosed in a 

 pointed wrapping like the 

 bouquets of the Madeleine 

 flower market, while the flesh 

 tints of the Trailing Arbutus 

 and the lavender or white 

 Hepaticas are enhanced by 

 the dark -toned resistant leaves 

 of the past season. 



Wise Magician, so to set 

 your scenery, while the peep- 

 -- ing marsh frogs twang away 

 on a single fiddle -string, as 

 befits the first arrivals in an 

 orchestra! Vivid color and wild music would be 

 a too abrupt transition from the season of etched 

 outlines, and silence that is only broken by the 

 calling of crow, owl and jay, the snapping of icicles 

 and the winds whistling. The Magician, though 

 he keeps flower and leaf -bud ready so that he may 



