THE COMING OF SPRING 13 



north side. It 's best to allers look on the south 

 side of things, specially this time o' year." 



Much of the older growth had been cut away 

 several seasons before, and a maze of dead branches, 

 left where the trunks had been trimmed, made 

 progress very slow. Ledge rocks as well as mossy 

 boulders protruded everywhere, and now and then 

 a hidden spring trickled down drop by drop, its 

 course being revealed by the greenness of the moss. 

 In one such spot were a few bunches of the pure 

 white fragile -petaled Bloodroot, the palmate leaves 

 having hardly loosed their hold upon the flower - 

 stalks that pushed up between. Wood Anemones 

 nodded close by, and in the shallow earth on a 

 rock ledge perched the resetted leaves of early Saxi- 

 frage, with some scattering flower-stalks. Nothing 

 as yet in abundance, but promise everywhere. 



On went Time o' Year without speaking un- 

 til, leading straight through the sharp breastworks 

 of a great fallen hemlock, from whose branches 

 hung the old nest of a parula warbler, like a shred 

 of southern moss blown to northern woods, he 

 halted. Kneeling, he brushed away the leaves and 

 twigs from the ground before him. Beneath them 

 was a thick mat of leathery leaves ; some dark 

 green and bronze, others delicately veined. Vine- 



