A MAY-DAY ON MONUMENT. 



I HAVE always had great sympathy with the boys 

 who march at the head of processions — ^that 

 inevitable company whose presence is as certain 

 as it is incongruous, and whose chief joy appears to 

 be in the fact that for them the procession is always 

 an anticipation. It is yet to come to pass. It is still 

 future. These youngsters are epicures in sensations ; 

 and they take keen delight in maintaining that which 

 is to the sidewalk spectator a show, first passing and 

 then past, as a pleasure to be tasted, a sweet morsel 

 still rolled under the tongue. 



Now if 1 had the means and the time, I should 

 every year in this same fashion run ahead of the 

 vernal advance, the procession of leaves and blos- 

 soms and birds and butterflies, as it moves northward 

 from the Carolinas to the Canadas. There is such 

 an exquisite pleasure in watching the burst of life, 

 the outbreak of colour and fragrance, the clothing of 

 field and forest with verdure, that one would be ^lad 

 to prolong the sensation. In these days it would be 

 an easy matter to keep just ahead of summer for a 

 good two months. And then one might halt on the 

 banks of the St. Lawrence and let the pageant pass 



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