THE GARTER-SNAKE 



WHEN the returned crows have become 

 such familiar objects in the forlorn un- 

 clad landscape of early spring that they 

 have worn out their first welcome, and 

 the earliest songbirds have come to stay 

 in spite of inhospitable weather that 

 seems for days to set the calendar back 

 a month, the woods invite you more than 

 the fields. There nature is least under 

 man's restraint and gives the first signs 

 of her reawakening. In windless nooks 

 the sun shines warmest between the 

 meshes of the slowly drifting net of 

 shadows. 



There are patches of moss on gray 

 rocks and tree trunks. Fairy islands of 

 it, that will not be greener when they are 

 wet with summer showers, arise among 

 the brown expanse of dead leaves. The 

 gray mist of branches and undergrowth is 

 enlivened with a tinge of purple. Here 

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