MINSTREL WEATHER 



none the less fey. So is the mink, though 

 he moves like a phantom. 



Mosses, whereon March in coming treads 

 first, show one hue brighter in the swamps. 

 Pussy willows have made a gray dawn in 

 viny caverns where the day's own dawn 

 looks in but faintly, and the flushing of 

 the red willow betrays reveries of a not 

 impossible cowslip upon the bank beneath. 

 The blue jay has mentioned it in the course 

 of his voluble recollections. He is unwill- 

 ing to prophesy arbutus, but he will just 

 hint that when the leaves in the wood lot 

 show through snow as early as this . . . 

 Once he found a hepatica bud the last day 

 of February . . . Speaking with his old 

 friend, the muskrat, last week . . . And 

 when you can see red pebbles in the creek 

 at five o'clock in the afternoon . . . But* 

 it is no use to expect yellow orchids on the 

 west knoll this spring, for some people 

 found them there last year, and after that 

 you might as well ... Of course cowslips 

 beside red willows are remarkably pretty, 

 just as blue jays in a cedar with blue berries. 

 . . . He is intef minable, but then he has seen 

 a great deal of life. And February needs her 

 blue jays' unwearied and conquering faith. 



[12] 



