30 PASTORAL DAYS. 



her ruffled breast to the tender needs of her little family, peeping so con- 

 tentedly beneath her. The rain-proof clucks dabble in the neighboring 

 puddles, and chew the muddy water in search of floating dainties, or gulp 

 with nodding heads the unlucky angle-worms which come struggling to 

 the surface — drowned out of their subterranean tunnels. 



Now we hear the snapping of the latch at the foot of the garret stairs, 

 and we are called to come and see a little outcast that John has brought 

 in from the wood-pile. Close beside the kitchen-stove a doubled piece of 

 blanket lies upon the floor, and within its folds we find what once was a 

 downy little chicken, now drenched and dying from exposure. He was 

 a naughty, wayward child, and would persist in thinking that he knew 

 more than his mother. At least so I was told — indeed, it was impressed 

 upon me. But the little fellow was rescued just in time. The warmth 

 will soon revive him, and by-and-by we shall hear his little chirp and see 

 him trot around the kitchen-floor, pecking at that everlasting fly, perhaps, 

 or at some tiny red-hot coal that snaps out from the stove. 



Little did we suspect the mission of those rainy days, so drear and 

 dismal without, or the sweet surprise preparing for us in the myriad mys- 

 teries of life beneath the sod, where every root and thread-like rootlet in 

 the thirsty earth was drinking in that welcome moisture, and numberless 

 sleeping germs, dwelling in darkness, were awakening into life to seek 

 the light of day, waiting only for the glory of a sunny dawn to burst forth 

 from their hiding-places ! That sunny morn does come at last, and in its 

 beams it sheds abroad a power that stirs the deepest root. It is, indeed, 

 a glorious clay. The clustered buds upon the silver-maples burst in their 

 exuberance, and fringe the graceful branches with their silken tassels. 

 The restless crocus, for months an unwilling captive in its winter prison, 

 can contain itself no longer, and with its little overflowing cup lifts up its 

 face to the blue heaven. Golden daffodils burst into bloom on drooping 

 stems, and exchange their little nods on right and left. The air is filled 

 with a faint perfume, in which the very earth mould yields its fragrance — 

 that wild aroma only known to spring. Our little feathered friends, so 

 few and far between as yet, are full of song. The bluebird wooes his mate 

 with a loving warble, full of tender sweetness, as they flit among the sway- 

 ing twigs, or pry with diligent search for some snug nesting-place among 

 the hollow crannies of the orchard trees. The noisy blackbirds hold 

 high carnival in the top of the old pine-tree, the woodpecker taps upon 

 the hollow limb his resonant tattoo, and the hungry crows, like a posse of 



