ly about the same time. Apricot-trees are
usually in bloom on All-Fool's Day and the apple-trees on May Day. By
August, mother hen will lead forth her third brood, and I had a March
pullet that came off with a family of her own in September. Our
calendar is made for this climate. March is a spring month. One is
quite sure to see some marked and striking change during the first
eight or ten days. This season (1868) is a backward one, and the
memorable change did not come till the 10th.

Then the sun rose up from a bed of vapors, and seemed fairly to
dissolve with tenderness and warmth. For an hour or two the air was
perfectly motionless, and full of low, humming, awakening sounds. The
naked trees had a rapt, expectant look. From some unreclaimed common
near by came the first strain of the song sparrow; so homely, because
so old and familiar, yet so inexpressibly pleasing. Presently a full
chorus of voices arose, tender, musical, half suppressed, but full of
genuine hilarity and joy. The bluebird warbled, the robin called, the
snowbird chattered, the meadowlark uttered her strong but tender note.
Over a deserted field a turkey buzzard hovered low, and alighted on a
stake in the fence, standing a moment with outstretched, vibrating
wings till he was sure of his hold. A soft, warm, brooding day. Roads
becoming dry in many places, and looking so good after the mud and the
snow. I walk up beyond the boundary and over Meridian Hill. To move
along the drying road and feel the delicious warmth is enough. The
cattle low long and loud, and look wistfully into the distance. I
sympathize with them. Never a spring comes but I have an almost
irresistible desire to depart. Some nomadic or migrating instinct or
reminiscence stirs within me. I ache to be off.

As I pass along, the high-bole calls in the distance precisely as I
have heard him in the North. After a pause he repeats his summons.
What can be more welcome to the ear than these early first sounds!
They have such a margin of silence!

One need but pass the boundary of Washington city to be fairly in the
country, and ten minutes' walk in the country brings one to real
primitive woods. The town has not yet overflowed its limits like the
great Northern commercial capitals, and Nature, wild and unkempt,
comes up to its very threshold, and even in many places crosses it.

The woods, which I soon reach, are stark and still. The signs of
returning life are so faint as to be almos