FEBRUARY 33 



which they bid defiance to all the winds that 

 blow, and fling down a gage to all the powers 

 of frost, and cold, and quick-spent lightning. 

 Or else, in summer twilights, and in silvery 

 April dawns, they sang a love-song as old as 

 the eternities and as vast as space. Back of 

 the farmhouse lay an orchard : rose-white in 

 April, pearl-white in May, green in midsummer, 

 golden and crimson and russet at the fall of the 

 leaf, and grey and brown in winter. Through 

 it the seasons came and went in orderly pro- 

 cession. Children played in it. Thrushes 

 sang there in the starlit dusks, and a gentle 

 old man with white hair walked there in the 

 sunshine of the afternoons. The winds came 

 sweet and pure across the fields to rustle the 

 curtain that overhung the farmhouse door. 

 Such a curtain ! The gracious, wandering 

 sprays of which it was woven were like green 

 frostwork ; the pink-white clusters of its odd 

 little pendent flowers were not flowers at all, 

 but quaintest fairy garments hung out to dry 

 after the rain that had silvered the leaves, and 

 oh ! the exquisite roundness and blackness 

 and shiningness of the tiny seeds ! To gather 

 and gather them was one of the joys of the 



