A Window in Arcady 
within. It was beginning to look up from amid the brown 
leaves in our hills a week ago. The poet Bryant knew this 
flower well, and has sung its charms in familiar verse: 
“Ere beechen buds begin to swell, 
And woods the bluebird’s warble know, 
The yellow violet’s modest bell 
Peeps from the last year’s leaves below.” 
By the banks of woodland rills and in moist meadows 
the dainty white violets are beginning to waken up to 
captivate the heart of everybody that sees them. Com¬ 
panioning the common blue and purple sorts about May 
day will be two late blooming yellow violets, whose flowers 
are borne high on leafy stems. There is one species with 
blossoms that are pale lavender or cream-colored. 
April 18. —Man’s faithful benefactor, the earthworm, 
is about again. He has been spending the winter in seclu¬ 
sion below the frost line with a few friends, all fast asleep 
together. The earthworm is such an uncomplaining crea¬ 
ture, so unassertive and so absolutely lacking in elements 
of picturesqueness, that his value to the world is by no 
means generally appreciated. He is a type of a great army 
of humanity, nameless in history or even in the country 
paper, whose unremitting faithfulness in hidden avenues 
of humdrum duty, day in and day out, keeps society sound 
and its wheels unclogged. For he is, indeed, “Nature’s 
plowman,” perpetually keeping the earth loosened by his 
borings, making ground mellow and fertile that would 
otherwise settle down to hardness and sourness, bringing 
the subsoil to the top and vice versa—this last a process 
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