A BREATH OF APRIL 



boots for half an hour and let my bare feet feel the 

 ground beneath them once more. There was a 

 smooth, dry, level place in the road near home, 

 and along this I used to run, and exult in that sense 

 of lightfootedness which is so keen at such times. 

 "What a feeling of freedom, of emancipation, and of 

 joy in the returning spring I used to experience in 

 those warm April twilights! 



I think every man whose youth was spent on the 

 farm, whatever his life since, must have moments 

 at this season when he longs to go back to the soil. 

 How its sounds, its odors, its occupations, its asso- 

 ciations, come back to him! Would he not like to 

 return again to help rake up the litter of straw and 

 stalks about the bam, or about the stack on the 

 hill where the grass is starting ? Would he not like 

 to help pick the stone from the meadow, or mend 

 the brush fence on the mountain where the sheep 

 roam, or hunt up old Brindle's calf in the woods, 

 or gather oven-wood for his mother to start again 

 the big brick oven with its dozen loaves of rye 

 bread, or see the plow crowding the lingering snow- 

 banks on the side-hill, or help his father break and 

 swingle and hatchel the flax in the barnyard ? 



When I see a farm advertised for rent or for sale 

 in the spring, I want to go at once and look it over. 

 All the particulars interest me — so many acres of 

 meadow-land, so many of woodland, so many of 

 pasture — the garden, the orchard, the outbuUd- 

 37 



