ull of such contrasts and touches of wild,
delicate beauty as no other season affords. The deluded citizen fancies
there is nothing enjoyable in the country till June, and so misses the
freshest, tenderest part. It is as if one should miss strawberries
and begin his fruit-eating with melons and peaches. These last are
good,--supremely so, they are melting and luscious,--but nothing so
thrills and penetrates the taste, and wakes up and teases the papillae
of the tongue, as the uncloying strawberry. What midsummer sweetness
half so distracting as its brisk sub-acid flavor, and what splendor of
full-leaved June can stir the blood like the best of leafless April?

One characteristic April feature, and one that delights me very much,
is the perfect emerald of the spring runs while the fields are yet brown
and sere,--strips and patches of the most vivid velvet green on the
slopes and in the valleys. How the eye grazes there, and is filled
and refreshed! I had forgotten what a marked feature this was until I
recently rode in an open wagon for three days through a mountainous,
pastoral country, remarkable for its fine springs. Those delicious
green patches are yet in my eye. The fountains flowed with May. Where no
springs occurred, there were hints and suggestions of springs about
the fields and by the roadside in the freshened grass,--sometimes
overflowing a space in the form of an actual fountain. The water did not
quite get to the surface in such places, but sent its influence.

The fields of wheat and rye, too, how they stand out of the April
landscape,--great green squares on a field of brown or gray!

Among April sounds there is none more welcome or suggestive to me than
the voice of the little frogs piping in the marshes. No bird-note
can surpass it as a spring token; and as it is not mentioned, to my
knowledge, by the poets and writers of other lands, I am ready to
believe it is characteristic of our season alone. You may be sure April
has really come when this little amphibian creeps out of the mud and
inflates its throat. We talk of the bird inflating its throat, but you
should see this tiny minstrel inflate _its_ throat, which becomes like a
large bubble, and suggests a drummer-boy with his drum slung very high.
In this drum, or by the aid of it, the sound is produced. Generally the
note is very feeble at first, as if the frost was not yet all out of the
creature's throat, and only one voice will be heard, some prop