SOUTH RAIN 



Newfoundland or Labrador or Greenland 

 itself. I believe the horned owl knows it 

 as well as I do and begins his nest-build- 

 ing at the first sniff. 



At daybreak the wind had begun to 

 blow, all the keen chill was softened out 

 of the air, and blobs of rain blurred the 

 southern window panes. The tempera- 

 ture had risen already above freezing and 

 was still on the upward path. There was 

 in all the atmosphere that rich, cool fresh- 

 ness that comes with rain-clouds blown 

 far over seas. It is the same quality 

 which we get in an east rain, but it had 

 in it also that suggestion of spiciness and 

 that soft purple haze which drifts away 

 from the tropic islands that border the 

 Caribbean. Stopping a moment in my 

 study before going out into this, I found 

 another creature that had felt the faint 

 call of spring and answered it, I fear, too 

 9 



