72 DANVIS FARM LIFE 



appearing under the green leaves of this year or 

 the dead ones of last, at his very feet, which, after 

 the first moment of surprise, he knows are a hen- 

 partridge and her young. Tracing an unmistak- 

 able half -harsh note to a tree-top he sees the red- 

 hot glow of a scarlet tanager and knows that his 

 dull green mate is not far off. 



Led by the sound of axe-strokes, falling quicker 

 and not so strongly as those of the wood-chopper, 

 he breasts the tangle of broad-leafed hobble-bush 

 and the clustered bloom of cornels and comes upon 

 a man busy with axe and spade peehng the hem- 

 lock logs cut last winter; some shining in the 

 "chopping" in the whiteness of their fresh naked- 

 ness, their ancient vestments set up against them 

 to dry; others, still clad in the furrowed bark, 

 drilled by the beaks of a thousand woodpeckers and 

 scratched by the claws of numberless generations 

 of squirrels. It is one of Nature's mysteries that 

 these prostrate trunks should feel the thrill of her 

 renewed life and their sap flow again for a httle 

 while through the severed ducts. If the hand that 

 now strips them were the same that hewed them 

 down, one might believe the blood of these dead 

 trees started afresh at the touch of their mur- 

 derer. 



During the "breathing spell" which comes be- 

 tween the finishing of spring's and the beginning 

 of summer's work on the farm, the path-master 



