For me thertf is no clearer call in all the year 

 than that of the hylas' in the break-up days of 

 March. The sap begins to start in my roots at 

 the first peep. There is something in their brave 

 little summons, as there is in the silvery light on 

 the pussy-willows, that takes hold on my hope 

 and courage, and makes the March mud good to 

 tramp through. And this despite the fact that 

 these early hylas so aggravated my first attack 

 of homesickness that I thought it was to be fatal. 

 The second night I ever spent away from home 

 and my mother was passed with old Mrs. Tribbet, 

 who had a large orchard, behind which was a 

 frog-pond. In vain did she stay me with raisins 

 and comfort me with apples. I was sick for 

 home. And those frogs ! When the guineas got 

 quiet, how dreadful they made the long May 

 twilight with their shrieking, strangling, home- 

 sick cries ! After all these years I cannot listen 

 to them in the evenings of early spring without 

 catching an echo from the back of that orchard, 

 without just a throb of that pain so near to 

 breaking my heart. 



Close by, in a corner lot between the two 

 cross-roads of the village, lies a wretched little 

 [115] 



