26 Bird Day Book 



SPRING SIGNS IN SUNNY SOUTH 

 -♦^♦■ 



Thd spring is on the way, along the land 



The light falls tenderly into the gloom, 

 And here — here in the dusk close where I stand — 



A little bush is lit with jasmine bloom. 



THERE are some days that lean from the edge of the winter, and 

 peer on tip-toe into the approaching spring, gathering a soft- 

 ness that at once arouses a sleepy smile in the heart. Such was a 

 recent day when I drove from the city into a neighboring woods. 

 The road was the color of gold, and as smooth. Now and then a 

 cardinal bird made a line of radiance through the gray old trees, 

 whose tops are massed with red berries that look at a distance like 

 brilliant florescence. Most of the birds I saw that day were gray. 

 A sparrow sat so listlessly in a tree-top that he looked like a sort of 

 fungus growth. The mocking-bird on the fence was looking for a 

 worm — not a song. It is yet winter, although the cold days are 

 getting ready to depart. 



As I drove under the thick trees, I heard a jay bird singing a 

 song overhead. The jay bird is beautiful and cheerful, and his song 

 suggests industry. It seemed then that the bird was pushing a spirit 

 wheelbarrow through space. 



Watery spots lay like scraps of blue sky on the rim of the forest, 

 and the rainy paths were blue. Trees near and far seemed painted 

 with cobalt and gray, while the fields were a harmony of amber and 

 brown. One pale stretch of grass begged for the sunshine. The 

 thick tangle, that in late autumn was an even snow-drift of asters, 

 was everywhere brown along the roadside. All the flakes of this lit- 

 tle weed disappeared with the first frost. 



Today the sun mantles us with the warmth of spring, and every- 

 where are signs that the bleak winter days are over. — Kate Slaugh- 

 ter McKinney, Montgomery, Alabama, in Simmons Magazine. 



