red a spyglass, where I no longer need it.

It is because we do not live in the open air, that we become
near-sighted.

*

The rose may be improved by cultivation, and the thorns growing on its
stalk may become different from what they were; but they are thorns,
nevertheless.

*

(April 15th.)--I have heard the yellow-hammer, for the first time this
year. In springtime its notes are far more rapid and short than in
summer.

*

(April 23d.)--The first swallow has come. Now may we softly lull
ourselves to rest in the consciousness that sweet spring is with us
once again. The uncertain and anxious fluttering from one fair day to
another, is at an end.

My little pitchman says: "Swallows and starlings come and go in the
night." The idea is quite suggestive.

*

(End of April.)--We have had a shower. Oh, what fragrant odors it
awakened in flowers, grass and trees! And this fragrance floats off
into infinite space, while we short-lived children of man imagine that
it all exists for us. Everything that exists, exists for itself alone.

The _immortelle_ is one of the earliest plants to shoot forth its
leaves. It grows by the edge of the forest, and will thrive even in
poor soil.

*

(May 1st.)--We have had a cold, rainy day, with hail. Toward evening,
when the rain had ceased and the drops on the trees and bushes sparkled
in the golden sunlight, I heard the cuckoo, for the first time this
year. He flew from forest to forest, from mountain to mountain, crying
everywhere.

I now know why they say: "Go to the cuckoo."[4] The cuckoo has no nest,
no home of its own and, according to popular tradition, is obliged to
sleep on a different tree every night. "Go to the cuckoo," therefore
means: "be restless and fugitive; be at home nowhere."

When I told the grandmother of my discovery, she said: "You've hit it
exactly. You manage to get some good out of everything. You've won it."

She meant that I had won the game of life.

*

My kind little pitchman has given me an unexpected treat. He has
arranged a seat for me, up by the maple tree on the projecting rock.
But he cut away the bushes, and thus destroyed the privacy of my
favorite haunt. Nevertheless, I find it pleasant to sit there. No human
being is per