ioo ARBOR DAY 



snows, and April lapping well down upon the green- 

 ing fields and unloosened currents, not beyond the 

 limits of winter's sallying storms, but well within 

 the vernal zone within the reach of the warm 

 breath and subtle, quickening influences of the plain 

 below. At its best, April is the tenderest of tender 

 salads made crisp by ice or snow water. Its type 

 is the first spear of grass. The senses sight, 

 hearing, smell are as hungry for its delicate and 

 almost spiritual tokens as the cattle are for the first 

 bite of its fields. How it touches one and makes 

 him both glad and sad! The voices of the arriving 

 birds, the migrating fowls, the clouds of pigeons 

 sweeping across the sky or filling the woods, the elfin 

 horn of the first honey-bee venturing abroad in the 

 middle of the day, the clear piping of the little frogs 

 in the marshes at sundown, the camp-fire in the 

 sugar-bush, the smoke seen afar rising over the trees, 

 the tinge of green that comes so suddenly on the 

 sunny knolls and slopes, the full translucent streams, 

 the waxing and warming sun how these things 

 and others like them are noted by the eager eye and 

 ear! April is my natal month, and I am born again 

 into new delight and new surprises at each return of 

 it. Its name has an indescribable charm to me. 

 Its two syllables are like the calls of the first birds 

 like that of the phcebe-bird, or the meadow-lark. 

 Its very snows are fertilizing, and are called the poor 

 man's manure. 



