of you empty cases next spring and analyzing
the honey to learn if it isn't good medicine."

The Harvester straightened and leaned on the mattock to fill his lungs
with fresh air and as he delightedly sniffed it he commented, "Nothing
else has much of a chance since I've stirred up the cabbage bed. I can
scent the catkins plainly, being so close, and as I came here I could
detect the hazel and sassafras all right."

Above him a peculiar, raucous chattering for an instant hushed other
wood voices. The Harvester looked up, laughing gaily.

"So you've decided to announce it to your tribe at last, have you?"
he inquired. "You are waking the sleepers in their dens to-day? Well,
there's nothing like waiting until you have a sure thing. The bluebirds
broke the trail for the feathered folk the twenty-fourth of February.
The sap oozed from the maples about the same time for the trees. The
very first skunk cabbage was up quite a month ago to signal other plants
to come on, and now you are rousing the furred folk. I'll write this
down in my records----'When the earliest bluebird sings, when the sap
wets the maples, when the skunk cabbage flowers, and the first striped
squirrel barks, why then, it is spring!'"

He bent to his task and as he worked closer the water he noticed
sweet-flag leaves waving two inches tall beneath the surface.

"Great day!" he cried. "There you are making signs, too! And right! Of
course! Nature is always right. Just two inches high and it's harvest
for you. I can use a rake, and dried in the evaporator you bring me
ten cents a pound; to the folks needing a tonic you are worth a small
fortune. No doubt you cost that by the time you reach them; but I fear
I can't gather you just now. My head is a little preoccupied these days.
What with the cabbage, and now you, and many of the bushes and trees
making signs, with a new cabin to build and furnish, with a girl to find
and win, I'm what you might call busy. I've covered my book shelf.
I positively don't dare look Emerson or Maeterlinck in the face. One
consolation! I've got the best of Thoreau in my head, and if I read
Stickeen a few times more I'll be able to recite that. There's a man for
you, not to mention the dog! Bel, where are you? Would you stick to me
like that? I think you would. But you are a big, strong fellow. Stickeen
was only such a mite of a dog. But what a man he followed! I feel as
if I should put on high-heeled slippers and carry a fan a