52 EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 
or so above the water, the leaves but partially 
unrolled and looking as if they would with¬ 
draw beneath the surface again at night. This 
I think must be the most conspicuous and for¬ 
ward greenness of the spring. The small red¬ 
dish, radical leaves of the dock, too, are ob¬ 
served flat on the moist ground as soon as the 
snow has melted there, as if they had grown 
beneath it. 
Talk about reading ! a good reader ! It de- 
I pends on how he is heard. There may be 
elocution and pronunciation (recitation say) to 
satiety, but there can be no good reading un¬ 
less there is good hearing also. It takes two, 
at least, for this game, as for love, and they 
must cooperate. The lecturer will read but 
those parts of his lecture which are best heard. 
Sometimes, it is true, the faith and spirits of 
the reader run a little ahead and draw after 
the good hearing, and at other times the good 
hearing runs ahead and draws on the good 
reading. The reader and the hearer are a 
I team not to be harnessed tandem, the poor 
wheel horse supporting the burden of the shafts, 
while the leader runs pretty much at will, the 
lecture lying passive in the painted curricle be¬ 
hind. I saw some men unloading molasses 
hogsheads from a truck at a depot the other 
day, by rolling them up an inclined plane. The 
