s in full round
notes: "Good Cheer! Good Cheer!" Again the odour swept the orchard, so
strong that this time there was no mistaking it. The Cardinal darted
to the topmost branch, his crest flaring, his tail twitching nervously.
"Chip! Chip!" he cried with excited insistence, "Chip! Chip!"

The breeze was coming stiffly and steadily now, unlike anything the
Cardinal ever had known, for its cool breath told of ice-bound fields
breaking up under the sun. Its damp touch was from the spring showers
washing the face of the northland. Its subtle odour was the
commingling of myriads of unfolding leaves and crisp plants,
upspringing; its pungent perfume was the pollen of catkins.

Up in the land of the Limberlost, old Mother Nature, with strident
muttering, had set about her annual house cleaning. With her efficient
broom, the March wind, she was sweeping every nook and cranny clean.
With her scrub-bucket overflowing with April showers, she was washing
the face of all creation, and if these measures failed to produce
cleanliness to her satisfaction, she gave a final polish with storms of
hail. The shining river was filled to overflowing; breaking up the ice
and carrying a load of refuse, it went rolling to the sea. The ice and
snow had not altogether gone; but the long-pregnant earth was mothering
her children. She cringed at every step, for the ground was teeming
with life. Bug and worm were working to light and warmth. Thrusting
aside the mold and leaves above them, spring beauties, hepaticas, and
violets lifted tender golden-green heads. The sap was flowing, and
leafless trees were covered with swelling buds. Delicate mosses were
creeping over every stick of decaying timber. The lichens on stone and
fence were freshly painted in unending shades of gray and green.
Myriads of flowers and vines were springing up to cover last year's
decaying leaves.

"The beautiful uncut hair of graves" was creeping over meadow,
spreading beside roadways, and blanketing every naked spot.

The Limberlost was waking to life even ahead of the fields and the
river. Through the winter it had been the barest and dreariest of
places; but now the earliest signs of returning spring were in its
martial music, for when the green hyla pipes, and the bullfrog drums,
the bird voices soon join them. The catkins bloomed first; and then,
in an incredibly short time, flags, rushes, and vines were like a sea
of waving green, and swelling buds were