XII 



PLANTING 



March 10. The snow is falling softly and stead- 

 ily, as it did on that Saturday in December when 

 winter and the great storm came together. Earth 

 for the most part has been snugly blanketed ever 

 since, but during the last two weeks she has seemed 

 restless and thrown aside the covering, showing her 

 brown body here and there ; but as yet it is pulse- 

 less and irresponsive. For even as human vitality is 

 at its lowest ebb in the early morning, so it is with 

 plant life in the early spring. 



From the sense of sight alone it might still be a 

 midwinter afternoon, but the ear catches the spring 

 keynote. True, the winter birds, pine finch, cross- 

 bills, and chickadees, are calling in the spruces, but 

 an occasional song mingles with their greetings, the 

 exquisite carol of the fox-sparrows beginning jubi- 

 lantly and dropping to a swift close, and I know that 

 these are the first migrants feeding below in the field 

 where the wind has laid bare the seeded grasses. 



