THE SCARCITY OF SKUNKS 



he ragged quilt of snow had slipped 

 from the shoulders of the slopes, 

 the gray face of the maple swamp 

 showed a flush of warmth, and the 

 air, out of the south to-day, breathed 

 life, the life of buds and catkins, of sappy bark, 

 oozing gum, and running water — the life of 

 spring; and through the faintly blending breaths, 

 as a faster breeze ran down the hills, I caught a 

 new and unmistakable odor, single, pointed, pene- 

 trating, the sign to me of an open door in the 

 wood-lot, to me, indeed, the Open Sesame of 

 spring. 



" When does the spring come ? And who brings 

 it?" asks the watcher in the woods. "To me 

 spring begins when the catkins on the alders and 

 the pussy-willows begin to swell," writes Mr. Bur- 

 roughs, "when the ice breaks up on the river and 

 the first sea-gulls come prospecting northward." 

 So I have written, also; written verses even to 

 the pussy-willow, to the bluebird, and to the he- 



