In April Weather 63 



If the ash is before the oak, 



'Twill be a summer of fire and smoke," 



says an old piece of weather-lore. 



Nourishing gums and starches are stored away 

 all winter in the tree-trunks and branches, and 

 toward spring they feel their way along the least 

 twigs and into the buds where life has begun to 

 stir. 



The store of nourishment which sustains this 

 year's expanding foliage was collected last summer 

 by the leaves which have now rotted away under 

 the winter rains, or drifted into sheltered hollows, 

 where they lie, withered and sere. 



When this year's leaves have attained full 

 strength and maturity, they in their turn will 

 gather food which is to be put by, not for them- 

 selves, but for those which come after them. So 

 some labor and others enter into the fruits of 

 their labor, not only among humanity, but even in 

 the vegetable world. And so the great lesson of 

 Easter-tide, the lesson of self-sacrifice, is suggested 

 by the story of the awakening April woods. 



