WAYS OF THE MARCH HARE
[Illustration]
Follow him to the woods and you know his fascination, but never give the
March hare a reference for sobriety. His reputation cannot be
rehabilitated, yet his intimates love him in spite of it. He is such an
accomplished tease! He wakens, playful and ingratiating, with the sun;
he skips cajolingly among the crocuses; and before an hour passes he is
rushing about the fields in a fury, scattering the worn-out, brown
grasses, scaring the first robins, and bouncing over the garden fence to
break the necks of any tulips deceived by his morning mood. Impossible
animal, he is an eccentric born, glorying in his queerness; and none the
less, there are some who think he knows the zest of life better than
April's infatuated starling or the woodchuck drowsing in May clover. He
loves to kick the chilly brooks into foam and fluster them until they
run over their unthawed banks and tear downhill and through the swamp to
alarm the rivers, so that they, too, come out on land and the whole
world looks as though it had gone back to the watery beginning. He
chases north the snowy owl, ornament of our winter woods, and
fraternizes with the sinful sparrow. Shrike and grosbeak leave, saying
that really it is growing quite warm, and, glancing behind them, they
behold the March hare turning somersaults in snowdrifts. He freezes the
mud that the shore lark was enjoying. No one depends upon him. Yet, to
see swift and enchanting changes of sky, lake, and woodland, go forth
with the March hare and find with him, better than quiet, the earth
astir.
Trees lose the archaic outline as leaf buds swell. Reddened maples and
black ash twigs, yellow flowers on the willow, begin the coloring of a
landscape that will not fade to gray and dun again until December
comes. The lilacs are growing impatient, for already the sophisticated
city lilac bush is wearing costly bloom, careless that a debut made so
early early ends. The crocuses, spring's opening ballet, dressed in
pastel tints, take their places on the lawn, standing delicately erect,
waiting for bird music. Unknown to March's gales, the still swamp pools
are fringed with shooting green, full of hints of cowslips; and
arbutus--few know on what hillsides--is lifting the warm leaf blanket,
trusting that vandal admirers are far away. The March violet is sung
more than seen, visiting Northern slopes and woods hollows only by
caprice, but all the legends lingering over it, and the magic beauty it
gives to maidens who gather it at dawn, make the violet still, for
lyrical needs, the flower of March. Cuddled close to sun-warmed stones,
cloaked by quaint leaves lined with sapphire and maroon, sometimes now
the hepatica has come; and bloodroot nested under bowlders, and in fence
corners where the sun is faithful, lifts praying, exquisite petals that
open swiftly from the slim bud and are scattered by a touch. The dark
blue grape hyacinth stands calm in winds and bitter weather; waist-deep
in snow, it proudly holds its ground. Sap is visibly climbing to the
highest limbs. It seems even to be mounting in the ancient wild-grape
vines that swing from the roof of the wood, bearing no buds and looking
dead a hundred years, though there is life beneath the somber and shaggy
bark. Sap called back through the ducts of the winter-warped thorn,
solitary in the clearing where the cruel nor'easter raced, will cover
the sad branches, once the soft days are here, with shining blossoms.
The year turns when the sap runs. Little boys who have their sugar
maples picked out and under guard, being more forehanded about some
things than others, are whittling intensely.
Loneliest of all sounds, the "peepers" take up their forsaken song in
flooded meadows, silenced in ghostly fashion by a footstep that comes
near. Heartbroken chant, it is more elegy than spring song, hard to hear
at dusk, yet it is certain that those peepers are delighted that March
is here--as content with their fate, while they utter the poignant notes,
as the emphatic old frogs by the deeper water. Wander-birds, almost
unresting, are posting north again through the twilights. Bold wild
geese are awing for Canada. Quiet returning hawks cross the valleys, and
the pine grosbeak hastens past. Spring dowers the devoted but undesired
starling with a pleasant voice which will change by summer into an
exasperating croak, and so many of our birds suffer this unfair loss
that a feathered critic would have good reason to declare that poets
ought to be slain in youth. The terrifying little screech owl wails from
shadowy woods, and from the venerable timber sounds the horned owl's
obscure threat. The chickadee repeats with natural pride his charming
repertoire of two notes--"Spring soon!" Nothing is refused this fortunate
one, born with a sweet disposition and a winsome song, while sparrows,
angrily conducting their courtships, remain on earth solely by dint of
original cleverness.
Meadow mole and turtle, woodchuck and chipmunk, are recovering from a
three months' nap, waiting patiently in the sunshine for the season to
begin. Snakes come out with the rest of the yawning company. Fish
glitter again in the hurrying streams, building their nests and houses
like the others--often obeying a spring impulse to rush from lake to
outlet or from quiet water to streamhead, ending their journey suddenly
and forever amid wire meshes. The brooks are icy on the mildest days
with melted snow from the mountains, where hemlocks green as arctic
waters, shutting out the sun, keep a white floor long after the valley
wears grasses.
Whoever has a touch of madness to lend him sympathy with the March hare
likes the bewildering days through which he scampers to vanish at the
edge of April. Rebellious, whitening ponds and wind-bent trees; defiant
buds and all the kindled life of marsh, hill, and woodland, set free
once more from cold, but not from dread--hear at the coming of the mighty
month their promise of release. But only to comrades who will run with
him through muddy lanes and tangled brush does he show his treasures:
forest creatures sped like the couriers, petals lifted like the banners,
of life resurgent.