136 THE ROLL OF THE SEASONS 



It is dusky blackbirds that sing this on every 

 hand dozens of them each singing a song of bitter 

 rivalry, but blending into a chorus of great sweetness. 

 There is one blacker than black in the black hedge, 

 within reach of a stick, if we cared to swing it, 

 pouring out the music for which in daytime the thrush 

 often gets undeserved credit. There is another, duskier 

 than dusk, on the dusky road, running across head 

 down to fly after one whose song for some reason has 

 passed the bounds of endurance. There are two 

 tumbling one over the other in most unchorister-like 

 fight. In the little town blackbirds are taking advan- 

 tage of its desertion by crossing and recrossing the 

 little street at their own sweet will. The moon, still 

 shining behind us, makes the windows gleam, but 

 it cannot throw a shadow on the road. The robin 

 on the west side of the town (the moon's side) winds 

 his rattle as he does at dusk ; but on the eastern side, 

 where more is to be seen of the sun than of the 

 moon, the thrush adds his cheerier music to the sad 

 fluting of the blackbirds. 



Now the moon seems no longer a heavenly lumi- 

 nary. It is part of the earth, a disk raised on high 

 (but not so very high) to heliograph news of the 

 sun's coming. The hill to the town has raised us 

 above the sun. He is down there, still behind the 

 same hill, but held in a gulf beneath our feet. And 

 here is a phenomenon we had certainly not expected. 

 Though the sun is still well out of sight, we can feel 

 his warmth on the face as surely as if it were a fire 

 within a few yards. It is like a hot wind coming 

 from the east the quarter that usually blows us 

 chilly ones. It wafts up from the valley in puffs, 



