Page:Wild folk - Samuel Scoville.djvu/107



swamp-maples showed rose-red and gold-green in the warm sunlight, and the woods were etched lavender-brown against a heliotrope sky. The bluebird, with the sky-color on his back and the red-brown of earth at his breast, called, "Far-away! far-away! far-away!" in his soft sweet contralto. From a wet meadow a company of rusty blackbirds, with short tails and white eyes, sang together like a flock of creaking wheelbarrows, with single split notes sounding constantly above the squealing chorus. Beyond the meadow was a little pool, where the air was vibrant with the music of the frogs. The hylas sang like a chest of whistles so shrill that the air quivered with their song. At intervals, a single clear flute-note rose above the chorus, the love-call of the little red salamander; while the drawling mutter of cricket-frogs, the trilled call of the wood-frogs, and the soft croon of the toad added delicate harmonies. Near-by a song-sparrow sang wheezingly from a greening willow tree, but its note sounded flat compared with the shrill, high sweetness of the batrachian chorus.

Near the top of Prindle Hill was a dry warm slope, with stretches of underbrush, pasture, and ledges of rock rising to the patch of woods which