Page:The clerk of the woods.djvu/234

216 of. For myself, I am like a man in jail. My term is about to expire, and I am notching off the days one by one on a stick. "Three more," say I; "two more." "Welcome the coming, speed the parting guest." And I am ready to hang my cap on the horns of the moon.

"You are too much in haste," some man will say; the same that said, "How are the dead raised up?" But I know better. It is one happy effect of ornithological habits that they shorten the winter. There will be no spring flowers for a good while yet, but there will be spring birds within a fortnight, perhaps within a week; nay, there may be some before night. Indeed, I have just come in from a two-hour jaunt, and at almost every step my ears were open for the first vernal note. I have seen bluebirds, before now, earlier than this; and what has happened once may happen again. So, while the wind blew softly from the southwest, and all the hills were mantled with a dreamy haze, I chose a course that would take me past one apple orchard after another; and, as I say, my ears (which I often think are