GARDENING OVER A WINTER FIRE. 253 



traditional ideas of a serenade. But what lan- 

 guage can portray your feelings when you are 

 awakened some mild morning in March by the 

 wild minstrelsy of a party of robins and blue- 

 birds that, coming from you know not where, 

 have taken possession of your garden. The 

 long oppressive silence of winter is broken, and 

 now we shall have trills, solos, duetts, and 

 choruses that can only be imitated in the 

 Academy of Music. 



Song is the first crop I obtain from my gar- 

 den, and one of the best. The robins know I 

 am a friend of theirs in spite of their taste for 

 early strawberries and cherries, and when I am 

 at work they are very sociable and familiar. 

 One or two will light on raspberry stakes near, 

 and sing and twitter almost as incessantly and 

 intelligently as the children in their play-house 

 under the great oak tree. And yet the robin's 



