Page:Early Spring in Massachusetts (1881).djvu/205

Rh buttons so regularly disposed in oval schools in the air, or, if you please, along the seams which the twigs make, in all degrees of forwardness, from the faintest, tiniest speck of silver just peeping from beneath the black scales to lusty pussies which have thrown off their scaly coats, and show some redness at base or on close inspection. These fixed swarms of arctic buds spot the air very prettily along the hedges. They remind me somewhat by their brilliancy of the snow-flakes, which are so bright by contrast at this season when the sun is high. They are grayish, not nearly so silvery a week or ten days later, when more expanded, showing the dark scales.

The fishes are going up the brooks as they open; they are dispersing themselves through the fields and woods, imparting new life into them. They are taking their places under the shelving banks and in the dark swamps. The water running down meets the fishes running up. They hear the latest news. Spring-aroused fishes are running up our veins too. Little fishes are seeking the sources of the brooks, seeking to disseminate their principles. Talk about a revival of religion! Business men's prayer meetings, with which all the country goes mad now! What if it were as true and wholesome a revival as the little fishes feel which come out of the