io8 ARBOR DAY 



little grass-green patch appeared, and that all these 

 patches were crowded with sparrows. 



"Kee-wit! kee-wit! Is Spring coming now?" 

 "Spring!" The cry resounded over field and 

 meadow, and through the black-brown woods, where 

 the moss still glimmered in bright green upon the 

 tree trunks, and from the south the first two storks 

 came flying through the air. 



"WHEN THE GREEN GITS BACK IN THE 

 TREES"* 



BY JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 



IN THE spring when the green gits back in the trees, 



And the sun comes out and stays, 

 And your boots pull on with a good tight squeeze, 



And you think of your barefoot days; 

 When you ort to work and you want to not, 



And you and yer wife agrees 

 It's time to spade up the garden lot 



When the green gits back on the trees 



Well, work is the least of my idees 



When the green, you know, gits back in the trees. 



When the green gits back in the trees, and bees 



Is a buzzin' aroun' agin, 

 In that kind of a lazy "go-as-you please" 



Old gait they hum roun' in; 



*By permission of the publishers, Bobbs-Merrill Co. 



