110 EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 
ter, probably it would not reverberate so softly 
through the wood, and sound indefinitely far. 
Our voices even sound differently, and betray 
the spring. We speak as in a house, in a warm 
apartment still, with relaxed muscles and soft¬ 
ened voices. The voice, like a woodchuck in his 
burrow, is met and lapped in and encouraged by 
all genial and sunny influences. There may be 
heard now, perhaps, under south hillsides and 
the south sides of houses, a slight murmur of 
conversation, as of insects, out of doors. 
These earliest spring days are peculiarly 
pleasant; we shall have no more of them for 
a year. I am apt to forget that we may have 
raw and blustering days a month hence. The 
combination of this delicious air, which you do 
not want to be warmer or softer, with the pres¬ 
ence of ice and snow, you sitting on the bare 
russet portions, the south hillsides of the earth, 
— this is the charm of these days. It is the 
summer beginning to show itself, like an old 
friend, in the midst of winter. You ramble 
from one drier russet patch to another. These 
are your stages. You have the air and sun of 
summer over snow and ice, and in some places 
even the rustling of dry leaves under your feet, 
as in Indian-summer days. 
The bluebird on the apple-tree, warbling so 
innocently, to inquire if any of its mates are 
