A BREATH OF APRIL 



first water-thrush — a short, bright, ringing, hurried 

 song. If you approach, the bird flies swiftly up or 

 down the creek, uttering an emphatic " chip, chip." 

 In wild, delicate beauty we have flowers that far 

 surpass the arbutus: the columbine, for instance, 

 jetting out of a seam in a gray ledge of rock, its 

 many crimson and flame-colored flowers shaking in 

 the breeze; but it is mostly for the eye. The spring- 

 beauty, the painted trillium, the fringed polygala, 

 the showy lady's-slipper, are all more striking to 

 look upon, but they do not quite touch the heart; 

 they lack the soul that perfume suggests. Their 

 charms do not abide with you as do those of the 

 arbutus. 



II 



These still, hazy, brooding mid-April mornings, 

 when the farmer first starts afield with his plow, 

 when his boys gather the buckets in the sugar-bush, 

 when the high-hole calls long and loud through the 

 hazy distance, when the meadowlark sends up her 

 clear, silvery shaft of sound from the meadow, 

 when the bush sparrow trills in the orchard, when 

 the soft maples look red against the wood, or their 

 fallen bloom flecks the drying mud in the road, — • 

 such mornings are about the most exciting and sug- 

 gestive of the whole year. How good the fields 

 look, how good the freshly turned earth looks ! — 

 one could almost eat it as does the horse; — the 

 stable manure just being drawn out and scattered 

 35 



