78 WITH EARTH AND SKY 
seemed come to stay. He asserted his suprem- 
acy as an inference and never as an argument. 
The sun will not argue. You can never catch 
the sun in open lying any more than you could 
Jack Falstaff. The sun does things which de- 
ceive even the elect in matters of weather, and 
then when he backs down and disappears from 
his own dooryard and you would accuse him of 
playing with the truth, then you discover the 
sun had made no promises: we had inferred. 
But this day the inference was triumphant. 
The meadow larks and I knew a thing. And the 
meadow larks said what they knew. An empty 
block is just across the street from the house 
built for us, and there are apple trees, not a 
few upon it, and here, for what reasons I cannot 
name unless these wise birds know how full of 
love-wonder an apple tree at bloom always is, 
they cluster and clamor in their sweet staccato 
and more than any single place hereabouts the 
larks go skylarking. And to-day they are drunk 
with song. Their lyrics tumble over each other 
like hoydens. They scarcely intermit a moment. 
They must sing, and they do without a hesitant 
mood. I have learned to distrust my own 
sagacity; it has so often failed me. I know when 
not to affect wisdom. But I confess to finding 
it next door to the impossible to discount the 
knowledge of the birds. They are so sure them- 
selves. They never have a tentative note in 
their voice. They are categorical. They are 
