Where Town and Country Meet 



through the wet soil. The hood of the 

 spathe had, since it first broke the ground 

 in March, lifted visibly, and the sides ex 

 panded, bulging outward, so as to reveal 

 the small, pale clusters of minute flowers, 

 protected until now by the warm-colored 

 and tightly-closed blanket of the spathe. 



Almost constantly, as I strolled along 

 the edge of the woods, I could hear the 

 silvery chimes of the hylas, those tiny 

 wood-frogs which inhabit the pools and 

 marshes, and jingle their strings of sleigh- 

 bells (for the music, at a little distance, 

 sounds exactly like sleigh-bells) from the 

 1st of April until the middle of May. There 

 is no sound, to me, so delightful, so sug 

 gestive, so characteristic and typical of early 

 spring, as the chirping of the hylas. It 

 unites the early and the later season, for 

 it has a tinkle like the dripping and clash 

 ing of icicles, and a melodious, flowing 

 music like released brooks and the voices 

 of birds. I should feel lost and desolate 

 without my sleigh-bells in the spring. The 

 first pipe of the hyla is more delicious to me 

 than a whisper from Remenyi's violin, and 

 when there comes an answer, gradually 

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