Songs of the Fields 



blooms profusely. These flowers, as a rule, are 

 not attractive singly. They are a little golden- 

 green cluster or a fringe something like a willow When 

 catkin in shape, only longer, and each is covered t^*; Trees 

 with such tiny blooms so thickly placed that it re- 

 quires a glass to anah'ze them correctly. A single 

 bloom or a bunch of bloom or a branch is not 

 much; but an entire forest — no, more than that — 

 a world of it, is a dift'erent matter. 



This bloom comes at a time when our sense 

 of color is sated with the grays and whites of win- 

 ter and our lungs are starved with the stuff}" ar- 

 tificial heating of most of our homes. It opens 

 when the season is breaking and our hearts are 

 mellowed with the change. The trees flower when 

 the leaves are just beginning to unfold. Few of 

 them are an inch long, and they are nearly as 

 bright with yellow, pink, and silvery white as they 

 are with green ; and all their green is more strongly 

 tinged with yellow at that time than ever again 

 until they change color in the fall. 



So when all the trees of earth are covered 

 sparsely with golden-green leaves, and luuig closely 

 with bloom of gold, powdered deeply with dust of 

 gold, the color is in the very air. All the world 

 is sprinkled with it. If from some elevation you 

 can reach a level wdth the top of the forest you 

 will behold a sea of gold washing gently under 

 waves of enchanted air, for the touch of ice still 

 12 -1 YT' 



