auty 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.

[Illustration: AN APRIL DAY]

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 prophet bolder than a