274 IValks in New England 



The year is full of summer. Beneath a great 

 hemlock whose myriad branches and boughs sway 

 in the west winds, what is more sure than the real 

 new year no calendar convention, but the time 

 when the forces of growth are at once let loose, 

 and the voice of the Lord is heard among the 

 trees of the garden ! That voice is never silent, 

 though it be a still, small voice, and only the 

 prophets of the Lord may hear it. Among these 

 prophets are the mosses and lichens, which take 

 occasion for their renewing life in the wintry land 

 scape. For now it is that delicately bright red 

 dots and delicately green cups appear upon the 

 stumps of felled trees, and the green mosses at 

 the roots of trees begin to deepen their hues and 

 start in their lowest roots the slender stems that 

 shall bear their hidden fruits. Never does Nature 

 rest; and though the skunk cabbage may not yet 

 unfold its tight wrappings and project its full 

 crimson-streaked hood and open the starry blos 

 soms of its inner club, here is the marvelous 

 prophesy of spring in what it has already done. 



As the summer heats furnish their days of pre 

 diction of fall and the suspense of the glorious 

 manifests of the forests and the fields, so that in 

 a July day one may sense in the air the coming of 

 October, so in January we catch the whole 

 character of March, the month of hope. By such 



