34 GREEN TRAILS AND UPLAND PASTURES 



roads have dried out perceptibly since we came over 

 them earlier in the day. In many a furrow pools of 

 water have succeeded the zebra stripes of white. As we 

 look back to the upland pastures the shreds of drift along 

 the stone walls and by the edge of the woods are frailer 

 now. A day of warm ram, and they will be gone. How 

 tawny red the willows are in the swamp ! See, here are 

 bursting pussy buds ! We have said good-bye to the snow. 

 Yet not quite good-bye. In April it comes again, a 

 last belated rear guard of white cavalry skirmishing 

 across the garden after a dash over the northern 

 mountain. The early peas are up, two double rows of 

 them fifty feet long, and as the garden quickly whitens 

 they make four green lines across the snow. Then the 

 sun struggles through and drives back the attack. The 

 hotbeds, covered as with a mat of feathers, begin to melt 

 through; the manure pile steams; the eaves drip merrily; 

 the astonished song sparrows, driven into the pines and 

 even into the woodshed, emerge again, and redouble their 

 song as if to capture the lost time. This, indeed, is our 

 farewell to the snow, and as we contemplate the green 

 shoots of the perennials, protected, kept alive by their 

 long whiter covering; as we see our lilacs bursting into 

 bud and hear the brook's full-throated babble, fed 

 from the melting hills, there is tenderness and gratitude 

 in our farewell, as there will be once more warmth in our 

 welcome when over the northern hills comes back again 

 the first white skirmish line of the cohorts of the frost. 



