because of
its wealth of sun.

The willows had thrown out their tiny light green flags, though their
roots were under the ice, and some of the hard-wood twigs were tinged
with red. There was a faint, peculiar but powerful odor of uncovered
earth in the air, and the touch of the wind was like a caress from a
moist magnetic hand.

The boy absorbed the light and heat of the sun as some wild thing
might, his hat over his face, his hands folded on his breast; he lay as
still as a statue. He did not listen at first, he only felt; but at
length he rose on his elbow and listened. The ice cracked and fell along
the bank with a long, hollow, booming crash; a crow cawed, and a jay
answered it from the willows below. A flight of sparrows passed,
twittering innumerably. The boy shuddered with a strange, wistful
longing and a realization of the flight of time.

He could have wept, he could have sung; he only shuddered and lay silent
under the stress of that strange, sweet passion that quickened his
heart, deepened his eyes, and made his breath come and go with a
quivering sound. Across the dazzling blue arch of the sky the crow
flapped, sending down his prophetic, jubilant note; the wind, as soft
and sweet as April, stirred in his hair; the hills, deep in their dusky
blue, seemed miles away; and the voices of the care-free skaters on the
melting ice of the river below came to the ear subdued to a unity with
the scene.

Suddenly a fear seized upon the boy--a horror! Life, life was passing!
Life that can be lived only once, and lost, is lost forever! Life, that
fatal gift of the Invisible Powers to man--a path, with youth and joy
and hope at its eastern gate, and despair, regret, and death at its low
western portal!

The boy caught a glimpse of his real significance--a gnat, a speck in
the sun: a boy facing the millions of great and wise and wealthy. He
leaped up, clasping his hands.

"Oh, I _must_ work! I mustn't stay here; I must get back to my studies.
Life is slipping by me, and I am doing nothing, being nothing!"

His face, as pale as death, absolutely shone with his passionate
resolution, and his hands were clinched in a silent, inarticulate
desire.

But on his way back he met the jocund party of skaters going home from
the river, and with the easy shift and change of youth joined in their
ringing laughter. The weird power of the wind's voice was gone, and he
was the unthinking boy again; but the problem was only put o