m all the sounds of the outer world which they usually
bear. If now and then they waft hitherward the long call of a
locomotive, they soften it till it is only a dreamy reminder.

It is strange that in a spot so specially full of the tokens of last
year's life,--the dry grasses, the old oak leaves not yet pushed off by
the new buds,--where the only green is of the hemlocks and laurels that
have weathered the winter,--it is strange that in such a spot one should
feel the immanence of spring. Perhaps it is the bluebird that does it.
For it is the bluebird's valley as well as mine. There are other birds
there, but not many, and it is the bluebird which best voices the spirit
of the place. Most birds in the spring imply an audience. The song
sparrow, with the lift and the lilt of his song, sings to the universe;
the red-wing calls to all the sunny world to be gleeful with him; the
long-drawn sweetness of the meadowlark floats over broad meadows and
wide horizons; the bobolink, in the tumbling eagerness of his
jubilation, is for every one to hear. But the bluebird sings to himself.
His gentle notes, not heard but overheard, are for those who listen
softly. And in the Yellow Valley he is at home.

I am at home, too, and I find there something that I find nowhere else
so well. Its charm is in the simpleness of its appeal:--

"Only the mightier movement sounds and passes,
Only winds and rivers--"

I bring back from it a memory of sunshine and grass, bird notes and
running water, the broad realities of nature. Nay, more than a memory--a
mood that holds--a certain poise of spirit that comes from a sense of
the largeness and sweetness and sufficiency of the whole live, growing
world. Spring grass--the rare fragrance of the spring air--is the call.
The Yellow Valley holds the answer.

V

Larkspurs and Hollyhocks

"Jonathan, let's not have a garden."

"What'll we live on if we don't?"

"Oh, of course, I don't mean that kind of a garden,--peas and potatoes
and things,-- I mean flowers. Let's not have a flower garden."

"That seems easy enough to manage," he ruminated; "the hard thing would
be to have one."

"I know. And what's the use? There are always flowers enough, all around
us, from May till October. Let's just enjoy them."

"I always have."

I looked at him to detect a possible sarcasm in the words, but his face
was innocent.

"Well, of course, so have I. But what I mean is--people when they have a