THE BROOK IN APRIL 



of last year rustled with the tread of 

 brownies, and I came up in time to see 

 a fat gnome rolling along, humping his 

 shoulders and jiggling with laughter be- 

 fore the uproarious onslaught of the dog, 

 turning at the burrow's mouth to grin 

 in the teeth of eager jaws and vanish 

 into thin air as they clicked. A wood- 

 chuck? So Hodge would call it, seeing 

 according to his kind. Probably Bose 

 knew it for a fox, a silver-gray at least, 

 according to his foxhound dreams. I 

 myself knew that spring glamor was 

 on all the woodland and that this was 

 a round-paunched gnome, guardian of 

 buried treasure, out for an April day 

 frolic, and going back reluctantly to his 

 post after having a moment's fun with 

 the dog. 



As for the brownies, they were signs, 

 or rather forerunners, pacemakers to the 

 101 - 



