he brown pastures where watchful eyes can
already see the green. The joy of the season is singing in a million
bluebirds' and robins' throats; the cocks crow gayly; the caw of the big
black crow flapping overhead with ragged wing has a cheery tone. All
living creatures feel the tingle and throb of the great tide of life that
sweeps in with the returning sun. See yonder two dogs, how they frolic,
how they crouch and wheel and charge and roll each other over and pretend
to bite. "Pure mongrels," both of them, and as happy as if they were the
most aristocratic of Irish setters! See near by the tree full of flowers
that has lasted the winter through. That is a tulip-tree, holding up its
thousand delicate ghostly cups. Its grand trunk rises straight and
unbroken full thirty feet, then branches in symmetry, and holds up as if
to catch the sunshine and the rain its fairy goblets. And here is an oak
that has not yet let go its grip on last year's dead leaves. How sharply
the snow rattled on them, as if clashing on the iron which naturalists
say the sturdy tree holds in its blood! Who ever sees these last oak
leaves fall? And who knows where this dry, dead grass vanishes when the
green blades fill all its room? Look at the horse-chestnut; already its
buds are shiny. It must wait a good while before their

"little hands unfold,
Softer 'n a baby's be at three days old."

Sharp whistles the wind to-day, but it is the breath of life that it
breathes into us. It comes down from yonder hills where the snow is
shining yet. Grandly on the horizon lies Mount Tom, like a crouching
lion, guardian over the fair valley. Where the mountain line breaks,
between him and his twin sentinel, Holyoke, we know that the broad
Connecticut sweeps past Hockanum. The glorious river,--what an unfailing
joy it is to the eye as it curves and winds on its leisurely, steadfast
course to the sea! Here at our feet is another river, a little brook
flowing in clear stream over the roadside sand, born of the last
snow-drift and living till the sun drinks it up. And beside it are half
a dozen happy boys, paddling with their bare feet, making mud dams,
scraping new channels and short cuts for the stream.

How black is the still water of this pond, smooth as a steel mirror! what
perfect pictures it gives back of its woody and snow-touched banks! The
woods above are solemn as that grandest work of man, an Old World
cathedral, and free