THE COMING OF SPRING 21 



will, who had been sleeping almost as close to a 

 branch as the bark itself, suddenly divided himself 

 from his perch, and, unmindful of the early hour, 

 gave his weird cry many times. Nell stopped short, 

 in astonishment. 



Surely this was the time of first things; a day of 

 beginnings! The whippoorwilPs cry was startling, 

 and as my eyes followed the bat -like downward 

 swoop with which he disappeared in the shadows, 

 they rested on the first flower landscape of the year. 



Stretching backward from the open toward the 

 young growth of saplings was a glade starred by the 

 delicate Spring Beauty, whose rose -penciled white 

 petals open freely to the sun, but furl on being 

 picked almost as quickly as the leaves of the Sensi- 

 tive Plant. Here was a flower of itself inconspicu- 

 ous, yet when massed in its haunts the very eye of 

 the landscape. 



What a region for Violets! Dry woods, moist 

 woods, hillside and meadow, furnish food and lodg- 

 ing for a dozen members of that shy family which 

 never trusts its secrets to anything but the earth, 

 many species burrowing unopened and independent 

 flower-buds into the ground itself to ripen seed 

 and plant it in strict seclusion. 



The first-born of all, the little Blue Palmate 



