Where Town and Country Meet 



through the wet soil. The hood of the 

 spathe had, since it first broke the ground 

 in March, lifted visibly, and the sides ex- 

 panded, bulging outward, so as to reveal 

 the small, pale clusters of minute flowers, 

 protected until now by the warm-colored 

 and tightly-closed blanket of the spathe. 



Almost constantly, as I strolled along 

 the edge of the woods, I could hear the 

 silvery chimes of the hylas, those tiny 

 wood-frogs which inhabit the pools and 

 marshes, and jingle their strings of sleigh- 

 bells (for the music, at a little distance, 

 sounds exactly like sleigh-bells) from the 

 ist of April until the middle of May. There 

 is no sound, to me, so delightful, so sug- 

 gestive, so characteristic and typical of early 

 spring, as the chirping of the hylas. It 

 unites the early and the later season, for 

 it has a tinkle like the dripping and clash- 

 ing of icicles, and a melodious, flowing 

 music like released brooks and the voices 

 of birds. I should feel lost and desolate 

 without my sleigh-bells in the spring. The 

 first pipe of the hyla is more delicious to me 

 than a whisper from Remenyi's violin, and 

 when there comes an answer, gradually 

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