CHAPTER THREE 



THE DAY BEFORE SPRING AND THE NEXT 



"There is a faltering crimson by the wall, 

 Now on a vine, and now on brier thinned. 

 As though one bearing lantern through the wind 

 Here hides his light, but yonder lets it fall." 



Lizzette Woodford Reese. 



WILL any one gainsay that his most poignant 

 gardening emotions are experienced in 

 March? What other month can arouse such 

 turbulent feelings within us as March with her smiling 

 interludes which come unexpectedly out of the cold and 

 fierce storms like the singing melody that suddenly 

 breaks through a thunder of complicated orchestration. 

 The sky is bluer than blue; the sun is warm upon our 

 backs, and from the eaves of the house the water drips 

 in hilarious chuckles; the voice of the little brook near 

 the house, which we call "The Singing Water," is un- 

 loosed in a wild medley of exuberant sound, and sud- 

 denly there comes the piercing call of the Phoebe, the 

 most arousing bird note of the spring. And we can re- 

 sist no longer, but rush recklessly hatless to the garden, 

 feeling, if not actually repeating, Lowell's lines: 



"Every clod feels a stir of might, 

 An instinct within it which reaches and towers." 

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