16 An April Day Dream 



add a charm to the landscape. They are 

 never so numerous as to be a blot upon the 

 fair field. Early comers, they herald the 

 more timid birds of summer, but you are all 

 too likely to overlook them, for they are 

 silent as the flowers when the thrushes are 

 in song. Not literally silent, no bird is 

 that, but we fail to hear their twitter when 

 the grosbeak's grand outburst of melody fills 

 the evening air. It is not strange. The 

 stanch friends of childhood are usually for- 

 gotten when we face the " great" people of 

 the earth ; but what, after all, are these to the 

 trusty folk of early and unsophisticated days ? 

 How few ever reach beyond the grade of 

 twittering swallows and yet die envious of 

 those who make more noise in the world 

 and so attract the gaping crowd ! " Poor 

 and content is rich," and more's the pity 

 that we did not place greater value on the 

 twittering swallows of our early spring. 

 Their twitter, when the chill of winter still 

 lingers in the air, is sweet music, and the 

 bird is all we ask to fill the April outlook. 

 Poor then it may be, as compared with the 

 weakh of later days, but were we not con- 

 tent, ay, exuberant, over a single swallow, and 



