AN EARLY SPRING WALK 



AT noon, yesterday, April 7th, as I was 

 crossing the town common, I got the first 

 smell of the soil that indescribably fresh, 

 damp odor that thrills all one's nerves as 

 with the very touch of spring. Here and 

 there huge snow-banks were still lying, dirty 

 and ragged, like mammoth cattle that had 

 "wintered out;" and the light breeze blow 

 ing from the north had the tang of frost 

 in it yet. But I could not resist that intox 

 icating odor of the earth. It waked some 

 thing in my heart as restless and wild and 

 undaunted as the sprout of the frost-break 

 ing crocus, and I perforce dedicated the rest 

 of the day to the fields and wood-edges. 



Immediately after dinner the New Eng- 

 lander's good, old-fashioned, noonday din 

 ner I was off across the pastures to the 

 eastward, my rubber boots splashing 

 through the puddles of snow water that still 

 sparkled in little hollows of the frost-bound 

 soil. The sun lay warm and cheery over 



23 



