136 THE SPRING OF THE YEAR 



in the tree beyond, silhouetted against the moonlit 

 sky, two round bunches, young owls evidently, 

 which were the explanation of the calls. These two, 

 and another young one, were found in the orchard 

 the following day. 



I rejoined the guessers on the porch and gave 

 them the satisfying fact, but only after two or three 

 years of guessing about it. I had laughed once at 

 some of my friends over on the other road who had 

 bolted their front door and had gone out of the 

 door at the side of the house for precisely twenty- 

 one years because the key in the front-door lock 

 wouldn't work. They were intending to have it 

 fixed, but the children being little kept them busy ; 

 then the children grew up, and of course kept them 

 busier ; got married at last and left home all but 

 one daughter. Still the locksmith was not called to 

 fix that front door. One day this unmarried daugh- 

 ter, in a fit of impatience, got at that door herself, 

 and found that the key had been inserted just 

 twenty-one years before upside down ! 



There I had sat on the porch on a stump, let 

 us say, and guessed about it. Truly, my key to this 

 mystery had been left long in the lock, upside down, 

 while I had been going in and out by the side door. 



No, you must go into the fields and woods, go deep 

 and far and frequently, with eyes and ears and all 

 your souls alert ! 



