ACCORDING TO SEASON 



Spring is really behind time this year. And 

 when one is behind time himself, this accommoda- 



A late tion of the season fills him with satisfaction. At 

 times on this particular morning the woods looked 

 so bare and lifeless that it seemed as though winter 

 were trying to lap over into May. The ground 

 in places was thickly matted with dead leaves, 

 while here and there, in a depression in the woods 

 or on the sides of the hills, lay a patch of dirty 

 snow. 



But part of this wintry aspect was due to town 

 eyes, used to the crude masses and sharp outlines 

 of city buildings. Soon the woods were seen to 



Town eyes be blurred faintly as though looked at through a 

 mist. We noticed that the outlines of many of 

 the branches were broken, in most cases by in- 

 numerable clusters of tiny flowers, these usually 

 without the more vivid coloring of later blossoms. 

 The flowers of the swamp-maple formed an excep- 

 tion to this rule. This tree fringed the woods 

 with the vivid scarlet of its myriad blossoms, 

 and lightened the low-lying swamps almost as its 

 dying leaves lighten them in October. Another 

 exception was seen in the flowers of the male 

 willows, which sent out stamens heavy with yel- 

 low pollen that turned the catkins into golden 

 tassels, and made these willows conspicuous in 

 the swamps and along the streams. 



42 



