WOODLAND PATHS 



spring. I could see the little black eyes 

 and droll-pointed noses of them as they 

 worked eagerly all about in the shrubbery, 

 passing the word that the goddess might 

 arrive at any moment and that it was 

 time to dress for her. Now they whis- 

 pered it to terminal buds, and now to 

 lateral, but mostly they put their brown 

 heads down among the leaves, giving the 

 message to bulb and corm, tuber and root 

 stock. I could hear them calling all about, 

 a quaint little elfin note of " tseep, tseep," 

 and anon one would turn a roguish hand- 

 spring and vanish, thus hocus-pocusing 

 himself to the next northward grove. 



Busy brownies, they were, hop-o'-my- 

 thumbs clad in rufous-brown feather coats 

 that so harmonized with the dead leaves 

 among which they worked that it was 

 difficult to see them except when they 



moved. Ornithologists, bound by the let- 

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