170 SPRING AT THE CAPITAL. 



delicious warmth is enough. The cattle low 

 long and loud, and look wistfully into the 

 distance. I sympathize with them. Never 

 a spring comes, but I have an almost ir- 

 resistible desire to depart. Some nomadic 

 or migrating instinct or reminiscence stirs 

 within me. I ache to be off. 



As I pass along, the high-hole calls in the 

 distance precisely as I have heard him in 

 the North. After a pause he repeats his 

 summons. What can be more welcome to 

 the ear than these early first sounds? They 

 have such a margin of silence ! 



One need but pass the boundary of Wash- 

 ington city to be fairly in the country, and 

 ten minutes' walk in the country brings one 

 to real primitive woods. The town has not 

 yet overflowed its limits like the great North- 

 ern commercial capitals, and Nature, wild 

 and unkempt, comes up to its very thresh- 

 old, and even in many places crosses it. 



The woods, which I soon reach, are stark 

 and still. The signs of returning life are so 

 faint as to be almost imperceptible, but there 

 is a fresh, earthy smell in the air, as if some- 

 thing had stirred here under the leaves. The 

 crows caw above the wood, or walk about 

 the brown fields. I look at the gray, silent 



