CHAPTER I_The Spring of the Year

[Illustration: SPRING OF THE YEAR--SHADBUSH (CHAPTER I)]

The Dallas Lore Sharp Nature Series

THE SPRING OF THE YEAR

DALLAS LORE SHARP

AUTHOR OF “THE LAY OF THE LAND,” “THE FACE OF THE

FIELDS,” “THE FALL OF THE YEAR,” “WINTER,” ETC.

ILLUSTRATED BY

ROBERT BRUCE HORSFALL

BOSTON NEW YORK CHICAGO

HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY

The Riverside Press Cambridge

The Riverside Press

CAMBRIDGE . MASSACHUSETTS

U . S . A

TO MY SISTER

JENNIE THE BEST OF COMPANIONS

IN THE WOODS AND FIELDS

THROUGH WHICH WE WENT TO SCHOOL

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION ix

I. SPRING! SPRING! SPRING! 1

II. THE SPRING RUNNING 7

III. AN OLD APPLE TREE 13

IV. A CHAPTER OF THINGS TO SEE THIS SPRING 26

V. IF YOU HAD WINGS 33

VI. A CHAPTER OF THINGS TO DO THIS SPRING 41

VII. THE PALACE IN THE PIG-PEN 48

VIII. IS IT A LIFE OF FEAR? 60

IX. THE BUZZARD OF THE BEAR SWAMP 76

X. A CHAPTER OF THINGS TO HEAR THIS SPRING 86

XI. TURTLE EGGS FOR AGASSIZ 94

XII. AN ACCOUNT WITH NATURE 115

XIII. WOODS MEDICINE 127

NOTES AND SUGGESTIONS 137

ILLUSTRATIONS

SPRING OF THE YEAR--SHADBUSH _Frontispiece_

HYLAS PEEPING “SPRING!” 1

“THE EARLIEST BLOODROOT” 4

THE TURKEY-HEN--“HALF A MILE FROM HOME” 8

CATFISH FAMILY 12

SCREECH OWL--“OUT OVER THE MEADOW HE SAILS” 17

TREE-TOAD--“COMES FORTH TO THE EDGE OF HIS HOLE” 23

SKUNK-CABBAGE AND BUMBLEBEE 27

A SUNFISH OVER ITS NEST 29

CRESTED FLYCATCHER WITH SNAKE-SKIN 31

“ONE OF MY LITTLE BAND OF CROWS” 33

YOUNG PAINTED TURTLE, FROGS’ EGGS, SNAILS, AND

WHIRLIGIG BEETLES 45

“ONE LIVE TOAD UNDER YOUR DOORSTEP” 46

PHŒBE AND HER YOUNG 55

PIKE AND MINNOWS 62

FOX BARKING--“UPON THE BARE KNOLL NEAR THE HOUSE” 66

PINE MARTEN AND CHIPMUNK 71

“UPON ONE OF THESE THE BUZZARD SAT HUMPED” 79

YOUNG TURKEY BUZZARD 83

BROWN THRASHER--“OUR FINEST, MOST GIFTED SONGSTER” 87

PAINTED TURTLE--“BEGAN TO BURY HERSELF” 103

CHIPMUNK EATING JUNE-BUGS 117

“TWO TUMBLE-BUGS TRYING TO ROLL THEIR BALL UP HILL” 127

“THE BOX TURTLES SCUFF CARELESSLY ALONG” 130

INTRODUCTION

It has been my aim in the thirty-nine chapters of the three books in

this series to carry my readers through the weeks of all the school

year, not however as with a calendar, for that would be more or less

wooden and artificial; but by readings, rather, that catch in a large

way the spirit of the particular season, that give something definite

and specific in the way of suggestions for tramps afield with things

to look for and hear and do. Naturally many of the birds and animals

and flowers mentioned, as well as woods and aspects of sky and field,

are those of my own local environment--of my New England

surrounding--and so must differ in some details from those surrounding

you in your far Southern home or you on your distant Pacific coast, or

you in your rich and varied valley of the Mississippi, or you on your

wide and generous prairie. But the similarities and correspondences,

the things and conditions we have in common, are more than our

differences. Our sun, moon, sky, earth--our land--are the same, our

love for this beautiful world is the same, as is that touch of nature

which we all feel and which makes us all kin. Wherever, then, in these

books of the seasons, the things treated differ from the things

around you, read about those things for information, and in your

journeys afield fill in the gaps with whatever it is that completes

your landscape, or rounds out your cycle of the seasons, or links up

your endless chain of life.

While I have tried to be accurate throughout these books, still it has

not been my object chiefly to write a natural history--volumes of

outdoor facts; but to quicken the imaginations behind the sharp eyes,

behind the keen ears and the eager souls of the multitude of children

who go to school, as I used to go to school, through an open,

stirring, beckoning world of living things that I longed to range and

understand.

The best thing that I can do as writer, that you can do as teacher, if

I may quote from the last paragraph--the keynote of these volumes--is

to “go into the fields and woods, go deep and far and frequently, with

eyes and ears and all your souls alert.”

MULLEIN HILL, May, 1912

THE SPRING OF THE YEAR

CHAPTER I

“SPRING! SPRING! SPRING!”

Who is your spring messenger? Is it bird or flower or beast that

brings your spring? What sight or sound or smell spells S-P-R-I-N-G to

you, in big, joyous letters?

Perhaps it is the frogs. Certainly I could not have a real spring

without the frogs. They have peeped “Spring!” to me every time I have

had a spring. Perhaps it is the arbutus, or the hepatica, or the

pussy-willow, or the bluebird, or the yellow spice-bush, or, if you

chance to live in New England, perhaps it is the wood pussy that

brings your spring!

Beast, bird, or flower, whatever it is, there comes a day and a

messenger and--spring! You know that spring is here. It may snow again

before night: no matter; your messenger has brought you the news,

brought you the very spring itself, and after all your waiting

through the winter months are you going to be discouraged by a flurry

of snow?

“All white and still lie stream and hill--

The winter dread and drear!

When from the skies a bluebird flies,

And--spring is here!”

To be sure, it is here, if the bluebird is your herald.

But how much faith in the weather you must have, and how you must long

for the spring before the first bluebird brings it to you! Some sunny

March day he drops down out of the blue sky, saying softly, sweetly,

“Florida, florida!” as if calling the flowers; and then he is

gone!--gone for days at a time, while it snows and blows and rains,

freezes and thaws, thaws, thaws, until the March mud looks fitter for

clams than for flowers.

So it is with the other first signs. If you want springtime ahead of

time, then you must have it in your heart, out of reach of the

weather, just as you must grow cucumbers in a hothouse if you want

them ahead of time. But there comes a day when cucumbers will grow out

of doors; and there comes a day when the bluebird and the song sparrow

and all the other heralds stay, when spring has come whether you have

a heart or not.

What day is that in your out-of-doors, and what sign have you to mark

it? Mr. John Burroughs says his sign is the wake-robin, or trillium.

When I was a school-boy it used to be for me the arbutus; but

nowadays it is the shadbush: I have no sure settled spring until I see

the shadbush beginning to open misty white in the edge of the woods.

Then I can trust the weather; I can open my beehives; I can plough and

plant my garden; I can start into the woods for a day with the birds

and flowers; for when the shadbush opens, the great gate to the woods

and fields swings open--wide open to let everybody in.

But perhaps you do not know what the shadbush is? That does not

matter. You can easily enough find that out. Some call it June-berry;

others call it service-berry; and the botany calls it _A-me-lan’chi-er

ca-na-den’sis_! But that does not matter either. For this is not a

botany lesson. It is an account of how springtime comes to _me_, and

when and what are its signs. And I would have you read it to think how

springtime comes to _you_, and when and what are its signs. So, if the

dandelion, and not the shadbush, is your sign, then you must read

“dandelion” here every time I write “shadbush.”

There is an old saying, “He that would bring home the wealth of the

Indies must carry the wealth of the Indies out”; which is to say,

those who bring home the wealth of the Indies, must carry out some

kind of wealth in exchange. So you who would enjoy or understand what

my shadbush means to me must have a shadbush of your own, or a

dandelion, or something that is a sign to you that spring is here.

Then, you see, my chapter in the book will become your own.

There are so many persons who do not know one bird from another, one

tree from another, one flower from another; who would not know one

season from another did they not see the spring hats in the milliner’s

window or feel the need of a change of coat. I hope you are not one of

them. I hope you are on the watch, instead, for the first phœbe or

the earliest bloodroot, or are listening to catch the shrill, brave

peeping of the little tree-frogs, the hylas.

As for me, I am on the watch for the shadbush. Oh, yes, spring comes

before the shadbush opens, but it is likely not to stay. The wild

geese trumpet spring in the gray March skies as they pass; a February

rain, after a long cold season of snow, spatters your face with

spring; the swelling buds on the maples, the fuzzy kittens on the

pussy-willows, the opening marsh-marigolds in the meadows, the frogs,

the bluebirds--all of these, while they stay, are the spring. But they

are not sure to stay over night, here in New England. You may wake up

and find it snowing--until the shadbush opens. After that, hang up

your sled and skates, put away your overcoat and mittens; for spring

is here, and the honey-bees will buzz every bright day until the

October asters are in bloom.

I said if you want springtime ahead of time you must have it in your

heart. Of course you must. If your heart is warm and your eye is keen,

you can go forth in the dead of winter and gather buds, seeds,

cocoons, and living things enough to make a little spring. For the

fires of summer are never wholly out. They are only banked in the

winter, smouldering always under the snow, and quick to brighten and

burst into blaze. There comes a warm day in January, and across your

thawing path crawls a woolly-bear caterpillar; a mourning-cloak

butterfly flits through the woods, and the juncos sing. That night a

howling snowstorm sweeps out of the north; the coals are covered

again. So they kindle and darken, until they leap from the ashes of

winter a pure, thin blaze in the shadbush, to burn higher and hotter

across the summer, to flicker and die away--a line of yellow

embers--in the weird witch-hazel of the autumn.

At the sign of the shadbush the doors of my springtime swing wide

open. My birds are back, my turtles are out, my long sleeping

woodchucks are wide awake. There is not a stretch of woodland or

meadow now that shows a trace of winter. Over the pasture the bluets

are beginning to drift, as if the haze on the distant hills, floating

down in the night, had been caught in the dew-wet grass. They wash

the field to its borders in their delicate azure hue. At the sign of

the shadbush the doors of my memory, too, swing wide open, and I am a

boy again in the meadows of my old home. The shadbush is in blossom,

and the fish are running--the sturgeon up the Delaware; the shad up

Cohansey Creek; and through the Lower Sluice, these soft, stirring

nights, the catfish are slipping. Is there any real boy now in

Lupton’s Meadows to watch them come? Oh yes, doubtless; and doubtless

there ever shall be. But I would go down for this one night, down in

the May moonlight, and listen, as I used to listen years ago, for the

quiet _splash splash splash_, as the swarming catfish pass through the

shallows of the main ditch, up toward the dam at the pond.

At the sign of the shadbush how swiftly the tides of life begin to

rise! How mysteriously their currents run!--the fish swimming in from

the sea, the birds flying up from the South, the flowers opening fresh

from the soil, the insects coming out from their sleep: life moving

everywhere--across the heavens, over the earth, along the deep, dim

aisles of the sea!