

SPRING. 33 



approach upon his chosen ground. Yonder on the wooded slope the 

 feathery shad-tree blooms, like a suspended cloud of drifting snow linger- 

 ing among the gray twigs and branches ; and chasing across the matted 

 leaves beneath, a lively troop of youngsters, girls and boys, make the 

 woods resound with their boisterous jubilee. A jolly band of fugitives 

 fresh from the stormy week's captivity — spring buds bursting with life, 

 with a pent-up store of spirits that finds escape in an effervescence of 

 ringing laughs and in a din of incessant jabber. Well I know the buoy- 

 ant exhilaration that impels them on in their reckless frolic, as they skip 

 from stone to stone across the rippling stream, or " stump " each other on 

 the treacherous crossing-pole which spans the deep still current! Now 

 I see them huddle around the trickling grotto among the mossy bowl- 

 ders in the steep gully yonder, where the mountain spring bubbles into 

 a crystal pool. Alas ! how quickly its faint blue border of hepaticas is 

 rifled by the ruthless mob ! Now they clamber up the great gray rocks 

 beneath the drooping hemlocks, stopping in their headlong zeal to snatch 

 some trembling cluster of anemone, nodding from its velvety bed of moss ; 

 now plunging down on hands and knees, shedding innocent blood among 

 an unsuspecting colony of fragile bloom — those glowing blossoms so 

 welcome in the early spring ! Who does not know the bloodroot — that 

 shy recluse hiding away among the mountain nooks, that emblem of 

 chaste purity with its bridal ring of purest gold ? Who has not seen its 

 tender leaf-wrapped buds lifting the matted leaves, and spreading their 

 galaxy of snowy stars along the woodland path ? 



Then there was the shy arbutus, too. Where in all the world's bou- 

 quet is there another such a darling of a flower ? And where in all New 

 England does that darling show so full and sweet a face as in its home 

 upon that sunny slope I have in mind, and know so well ? Was ever 

 such a fragrant tufted carpet spread beneath a hesitating foot ? Even 

 now, along the lichen-dappled wall upon the summit, I see the lingering 

 strip of snow, gritty and speckled, and at its very edge, hiding beneath the 

 covering leaves, those modest little faces looking out at me — faces which 

 seemed to blush a deeper pink at their rude discovery. No other flower 

 can breathe the perfume of the arbutus, that earthy, spicy fragrance, 

 which seems as though distilled from the very leaf -mould at its roots. 

 Often on this sunny slope, so sheltered by dense pines and hemlocks, have 

 these charming clusters, pink and white, burst into bloom beneath the 

 snow in March ; and even on a certain late February day, we discovered a 



