A JOURNEY TO NATURE 



will go back,&quot; I had said to Charlie. And how 

 we longed for it. The season seemed to have 

 stuck fast while we watched the sunshine on the 

 wall, and there were long days when there was 

 no sunshine. But there were little premonitions. 

 The inhabitants under the floor were getting more 

 lively, and then one night we heard that peep, 

 peep from the pond, the first stir of life in the 

 warming earth. 



It was in March that the announcement was 

 officially made. The Doctor had sent me a thin 

 little book of Maurice Thompson s, and one verse 

 of his tells the whole story as nobody else can 

 tell it : 



&quot;I heard the woodpecker pecking, 

 The sapsucker tenderly sing ; 

 I turned and looked out of my window, 

 And lo, it was spring.&quot; 



What more have I to tell you ? Our idyl of 

 exile was done. We were to go away, taking with 

 us some soft memories of happy hours and sacred 

 companionship, inwrought, at least for me, with 

 some gracious lessons. 



One morning we stood on the platform at the 

 Spelldown station, watching the men put our boxes 

 into the baggage-car. A soft breeze came down 

 from the direction of the Hotchkiss woods, bring 

 ing, I thought, the odour of the swelling rose vines 

 and lilac bushes. Lilacs. It gave me a little 

 momentary twinge. Then I straightened myself, 

 and tried to whistle a bit of the hymn &quot; Onward, 



3H 



