16 THE SPRING OF THE YEAR 



On this March day we shall be admitted by my 

 owls. They take possession late in winter and oc- 

 cupy the tree, with some curious fellow tenants, un- 

 til early summer. I can count upon these small 

 screech owls by February, the forlorn month, the 

 seasonless, hopeless, lifeless month of the year, but 

 for its owls, its thaws, its lengthening days, its 

 cackling pullets, its possible bluebirds, and its being 

 the year's end! At least the ancients called Feb- 

 ruary, not December, the year's end, maintaining, 

 with some sense, that the making of the world was 

 begun in March, that is, with the spring. The owls 

 do not, like the swallows, bring the spring, but they 

 nevertheless help winter with most seemly haste into 

 an early grave. 



If, as the dusk comes down, I cannot go over to 

 the tree, I will go to my window and watch. I can- 

 not see him, the grim-beaked baron with his hooked 

 talons, his ghostly wings, his night-seeing eyes, but 

 I know that he has come to his window in the apple- 

 tree turret yonder against the darkening sky, and 

 that he watches with me. I cannot see him swoop 

 downward over the ditches, nor see him quarter the 

 meadow, beating, dangling, dropping between the 

 flattened tussocks; nor can I hear him, as, back on 

 the silent shadows, he slants upward again to his 

 tower. Mine are human eyes, human ears. Even 

 the quick-eared meadow mouse did not hear until 

 the long talons closed and it was too late. 



