APRIL

If we represent the winter of our northern climate by a rugged

snow-clad mountain, and summer by a broad fertile plain, then the

intermediate belt, the hilly and breezy uplands, will stand for

spring, with March reaching well up into the region of the snows, and

April lapping well down upon the greening fields and unloosened

currents, not beyond the limits of winter's sallying storms, but well

within the vernal zone,--within the reach of the warm breath and

subtle, quickening influences of the plain below. At its best, April

is the tenderest of tender salads made crisp by ice or snow water. Its

type is the first spear of grass. The senses--sight, hearing,

smell--are as hungry for its delicate and almost spiritual tokens as

the cattle are for the first bite of its fields. How it touches one

and makes him both glad and sad! The voices of the arriving birds, the

migrating fowls, the clouds of pigeons sweeping across the sky or

filling the woods, the elfin horn of the first honey-bee venturing

abroad in the middle of the day, the clear piping of the little frogs

in the marshes at sundown, the camp-fire in the sugar-bush, the smoke

seen afar rising over the trees, the tinge of green that comes so

suddenly on the sunny knolls and slopes, the full translucent streams,

the waxing and warming sun,--how these things and others like them are

noted by the eager eye and ear! April is my natal month, and I am born

again into new delight and new surprises at each return of it. Its

name has an indescribable charm to me. Its two syllables are like the

calls of the first birds,--like that of the phoebe-bird, or of the

meadow-lark. Its very snows are fertilizing, and are called the poor

man's manure.

Then its odors! I am thrilled by its fresh and indescribable

odors,--the perfume of the bursting sod, of the quickened roots and

rootlets, of the mould under the leaves, of the fresh furrows. No

other month has odors like it. The west wind the other day came

fraught with a perfume that was to the sense of smell what a wild and

delicate strain of music is to the ear. It was almost transcendental.

I walked across the hill with my nose in the air taking it in. It

lasted for two days. I imagined it came from the willows of a distant

swamp, whose catkins were affording the bees their first pollen; or

did it come from much farther,--from beyond the horizon, the

accumulated breath of innumerable farms and budding forests? The main

characteristic of these April odors is their uncloying freshness. They

are not sweet, they are oftener bitter, they are penetrating and

lyrical. I know well the odors of May and June, of the world of

meadows and orchards bursting into bloom, but they are not so

ineffable and immaterial and so stimulating to the sense as the

incense of April.

The season of which I speak does not correspond with the April of the

almanac in all sections of our vast geography. It answers to March in

Virginia and Maryland, while in parts of New York and New England it

laps well over into May. It begins when the partridge drums, when the

hyla pipes, when the shad start up the rivers, when the grass greens

in the spring runs, and it ends when the leaves are unfolding and the

last snowflake dissolves in mid-air. It may be the first of May before

the first swallow appears, before the whippoorwill is heard, before

the wood thrush sings; but it is April as long as there is snow upon

the mountains, no matter what the almanac may say. Our April is, in

fact, a kind of Alpine summer, full of such contrasts and touches of

wild, delicate beauty as no other season affords. The deluded citizen

fancies there is nothing enjoyable in the country till June, and so

misses the freshest, tenderest part. It is as if one should miss

strawberries and begin his fruit-eating with melons and peaches. These

last are good,--supremely so, they are melting and luscious,--but

nothing so thrills and penetrates the taste, and wakes up and teases

the papillæ of the tongue, as the uncloying strawberry. What midsummer

sweetness half so distracting as its brisk sub-acid flavor, and what

splendor of full-leaved June can stir the blood like the best of

leafless April?

One characteristic April feature, and one that delights me very much,

is the perfect emerald of the spring runs while the fields are yet

brown and sere,--strips and patches of the most vivid velvet green on

the slopes and in the valleys. How the eye grazes there, and is filled

and refreshed! I had forgotten what a marked feature this was until I

recently rode in an open wagon for three days through a mountainous,

pastoral country, remarkable for its fine springs. Those delicious

green patches are yet in my eye. The fountains flowed with May. Where

no springs occurred, there were hints and suggestions of springs about

the fields and by the roadside in the freshened grass,--sometimes

overflowing a space in the form of an actual fountain. The water did

not quite get to the surface in such places, but sent its influence.

[Illustration: AN APRIL DAY]

The fields of wheat and rye, too, how they stand out of the April

landscape,--great green squares on a field of brown or gray!

Among April sounds there is none more welcome or suggestive to me than

the voice of the little frogs piping in the marshes. No bird-note can

surpass it as a spring token; and as it is not mentioned, to my

knowledge, by the poets and writers of other lands, I am ready to

believe it is characteristic of our season alone. You may be sure

April has really come when this little amphibian creeps out of the mud

and inflates its throat. We talk of the bird inflating its throat,

but you should see this tiny minstrel inflate _its_ throat, which

becomes like a large bubble, and suggests a drummer-boy with his drum

slung very high. In this drum, or by the aid of it, the sound is

produced. Generally the note is very feeble at first, as if the frost

was not yet all out of the creature's throat, and only one voice will

be heard, some prophet bolder than all the rest, or upon whom the

quickening ray of spring has first fallen. And it often happens that

he is stoned for his pains by the yet unpacified element, and is

compelled literally to "shut up" beneath a fall of snow or a heavy

frost. Soon, however, he lifts up his voice again with more

confidence, and is joined by others and still others, till in due

time, say toward the last of the month, there is a shrill musical

uproar, as the sun is setting, in every marsh and bog in the land. It

is a plaintive sound, and I have heard people from the city speak of

it as lonesome and depressing, but to the lover of the country it is a

pure spring melody. The little piper will sometimes climb a bulrush,

to which he clings like a sailor to a mast, and send forth his shrill

call. There is a Southern species, heard when you have reached the

Potomac, whose note is far more harsh and crackling. To stand on the

verge of a swamp vocal with these, pains and stuns the ear. The call

of the Northern species is far more tender and musical.[1]

[1] The Southern species is called the green hyla. I have

since heard them in my neighborhood on the Hudson.

Then is there anything like a perfect April morning? One hardly knows

what the sentiment of it is, but it is something very delicious. It is

youth and hope. It is a new earth and a new sky. How the air transmits

sounds, and what an awakening, prophetic character all sounds have!

The distant barking of a dog, or the lowing of a cow, or the crowing

of a cock, seems from out the heart of Nature, and to be a call to

come forth. The great sun appears to have been reburnished, and there

is something in his first glance above the eastern hills, and the way

his eye-beams dart right and left and smite the rugged mountains into

gold, that quickens the pulse and inspires the heart.

Across the fields in the early morning I hear some of the rare April

birds,--the chewink and the brown thrasher. The robin, bluebird, song

sparrow, phoebe-bird, etc., come in March; but these two ground-birds

are seldom heard till toward the last of April. The ground-birds are

all tree-singers or air singers; they must have an elevated stage to

speak from. Our long-tailed thrush, or thrasher, like its congeners

the catbird and mocking-bird, delights in a high branch of some

solitary tree, whence it will pour out its rich and intricate warble

for an hour together. This bird is the great American chipper. There

is no other bird that I know of that can chip with such emphasis and

military decision as this yellow-eyed songster. It is like the click

of a giant gun-lock. Why is the thrasher so stealthy? It always seems

to be going about on tiptoe. I never knew it to steal anything, and

yet it skulks and hides like a fugitive from justice. One never sees

it flying aloft in the air and traversing the world openly, like most

birds, but it darts along fences and through bushes as if pursued by a

guilty conscience. Only when the musical fit is upon it does it come

up into full view, and invite the world to hear and behold.

The chewink is a shy bird also, but not stealthy. It is very

inquisitive, and sets up a great scratching among the leaves,

apparently to attract your attention. The male is perhaps the most

conspicuously marked of all the ground-birds except the bobolink,

being black above, bay on the sides, and white beneath. The bay is in

compliment to the leaves he is forever scratching among,--they have

rustled against his breast and sides so long that these parts have

taken their color; but whence come the white and black? The bird seems

to be aware that his color betrays him, for there are few birds in the

woods so careful about keeping themselves screened from view. When in

song, its favorite perch is the top of some high bush near to cover.

On being disturbed at such times, it pitches down into the brush and

is instantly lost to view.

This is the bird that Thomas Jefferson wrote to Wilson about, greatly

exciting the latter's curiosity. Wilson was just then upon the

threshold of his career as an ornithologist, and had made a drawing of

the Canada jay, which he sent to the President. It was a new bird, and

in reply Jefferson called his attention to a "curious bird" which was

everywhere to be heard, but scarcely ever to be seen. He had for

twenty years interested the young sportsmen of his neighborhood to

shoot one for him, but without success. "It is in all the forests,

from spring to fall," he says in his letter, "and never but on the

tops of the tallest trees, from which it perpetually serenades us with

some of the sweetest notes, and as clear as those of the nightingale.

I have followed it for miles, without ever but once getting a good

view of it. It is of the size and make of the mocking-bird, lightly

thrush-colored on the back, and a grayish white on the breast and

belly. Mr. Randolph, my son-in-law, was in possession of one which had

been shot by a neighbor," etc. Randolph pronounced it a flycatcher,

which was a good way wide of the mark. Jefferson must have seen only

the female, after all his tramp, from his description of the color;

but he was doubtless following his own great thoughts more than the

bird, else he would have had an earlier view. The bird was not a new

one, but was well known then as the ground-robin. The President put

Wilson on the wrong scent by his erroneous description, and it was a

long time before the latter got at the truth of the case. But

Jefferson's letter is a good sample of those which specialists often

receive from intelligent persons who have seen or heard something in

their line very curious or entirely new, and who set the man of

science agog by a description of the supposed novelty,--a description

that generally fits the facts of the case about as well as your coat

fits the chairback. Strange and curious things in the air, and in the

water, and in the earth beneath, are seen every day except by those

who are looking for them, namely, the naturalists. When Wilson or

Audubon gets his eye on the unknown bird, the illusion vanishes, and

your phenomenon turns out to be one of the commonplaces of the fields

or woods.

A prominent April bird, that one does not have to go to the woods or

away from his own door to see and hear, is the hardy and ever-welcome

meadow-lark. What a twang there is about this bird, and what vigor! It

smacks of the soil. It is the winged embodiment of the spirit of our

spring meadows. What emphasis in its "_z-d-t, z-d-t_," and what

character in its long, piercing note! Its straight, tapering, sharp

beak is typical of its voice. Its note goes like a shaft from a

crossbow; it is a little too sharp and piercing when near at hand,

but, heard in the proper perspective, it is eminently melodious and

pleasing. It is one of the major notes of the fields at this season.

In fact, it easily dominates all others. "_Spring o' the year! spring

o' the year!_" it says, with a long-drawn breath, a little plaintive,

but not complaining or melancholy. At times it indulges in something

much more intricate and lark-like while hovering on the wing in

mid-air, but a song is beyond the compass of its instrument, and the

attempt usually ends in a breakdown. A clear, sweet, strong,

high-keyed note, uttered from some knoll or rock, or stake in the

fence, is its proper vocal performance. It has the build and walk and

flight of the quail and the grouse. It gets up before you in much the

same manner, and falls an easy prey to the crack shot. Its yellow

breast, surmounted by a black crescent, it need not be ashamed to turn

to the morning sun, while its coat of mottled gray is in perfect

keeping with the stubble amid which it walks.

The two lateral white quills in its tails seem strictly in character.

These quills spring from a dash of scorn and defiance in the bird's

make-up. By the aid of these, it can almost emit a flash as it struts

about the fields and jerks out its sharp notes. They give a rayed, a

definite and piquant expression to its movements. This bird is not

properly a lark, but a starling, say the ornithologists, though it is

lark-like in its habits, being a walker and entirely a ground-bird.

Its color also allies it to the true lark. I believe there is no bird

in the English or European fields that answers to this hardy

pedestrian of our meadows. He is a true American, and his note one of

our characteristic April sounds.

Another marked April note, proceeding sometimes from the meadows, but

more frequently from the rough pastures and borders of the woods, is

the call of the high-hole, or golden-shafted woodpecker. It is quite

as strong as that of the meadow-lark, but not so long-drawn and

piercing. It is a succession of short notes rapidly uttered, as if the

bird said "_if-if-if-if-if-if-if_." The notes of the ordinary downy

and hairy woodpeckers suggest, in some way, the sound of a steel

punch; but that of the high-hole is much softer, and strikes on the

ear with real springtime melody. The high-hole is not so much a

wood-pecker as he is a ground-pecker. He subsists largely on ants and

crickets, and does not appear till they are to be found.

In Solomon's description of spring, the voice of the turtle is

prominent, but our turtle, or mourning dove, though it arrives in

April, can hardly be said to contribute noticeably to the open-air

sounds. Its call is so vague, and soft, and mournful,--in fact, so

remote and diffused,--that few persons ever hear it at all.

Such songsters as the cow blackbird are noticeable at this season,

though they take a back seat a little later. It utters a peculiarly

liquid April sound. Indeed, one would think its crop was full of

water, its notes so bubble up and regurgitate, and are delivered with

such an apparent stomachic contraction. This bird is the only

feathered polygamist we have. The females are greatly in excess of the

males, and the latter are usually attended by three or four of the

former. As soon as the other birds begin to build, they are on the

_qui vive_, prowling about like gypsies, not to steal the young of

others, but to steal their eggs into other birds' nests, and so shirk

the labor and responsibility of hatching and rearing their own young.

As these birds do not mate, and as therefore there can be little or no

rivalry or competition between the males, one wonders--in view of

Darwin's teaching--why one sex should have brighter and richer plumage

than the other, which is the fact. The males are easily distinguished

from the dull and faded females by their deep glossy-black coats.

The April of English literature corresponds nearly to our May. In

Great Britain, the swallow and the cuckoo usually arrive by the middle

of April; with us, their appearance is a week or two later. Our April,

at its best, is a bright, laughing face under a hood of snow, like the

English March, but presenting sharper contrasts, a greater mixture of

smiles and tears and icy looks than are known to our ancestral

climate. Indeed, Winter sometimes retraces his steps in this month,

and unburdens himself of the snows that the previous cold has kept

back; but we are always sure of a number of radiant, equable

days,--days that go before the bud, when the sun embraces the earth

with fervor and determination. How his beams pour into the woods till

the mould under the leaves is warm and emits an odor! The waters

glint and sparkle, the birds gather in groups, and even those unwont

to sing find a voice. On the streets of the cities, what a flutter,

what bright looks and gay colors! I recall one preëminent day of this

kind last April. I made a note of it in my notebook. The earth seemed

suddenly to emerge from a wilderness of clouds and chilliness into one

of these blue sunlit spaces. How the voyagers rejoiced! Invalids came

forth, old men sauntered down the street, stocks went up, and the

political outlook brightened.

Such days bring out the last of the hibernating animals. The woodchuck

unrolls and creeps out of his den to see if his clover has started

yet. The torpidity leaves the snakes and the turtles, and they come

forth and bask in the sun. There is nothing so small, nothing so

great, that it does not respond to these celestial spring days, and

give the pendulum of life a fresh start.

April is also the month of the new furrow. As soon as the frost is

gone and the ground settled, the plow is started upon the hill, and at

each bout I see its brightened mould-board flash in the sun. Where the

last remnants of the snowdrift lingered yesterday the plow breaks the

sod to-day. Where the drift was deepest the grass is pressed flat, and

there is a deposit of sand and earth blown from the fields to

windward. Line upon line the turf is reversed, until there stands out

of the neutral landscape a ruddy square visible for miles, or until

the breasts of the broad hills glow like the breasts of the robins.

Then who would not have a garden in April? to rake together the

rubbish and burn it up, to turn over the renewed soil, to scatter the

rich compost, to plant the first seed or bury the first tuber! It is

not the seed that is planted, any more than it is I that is planted;

it is not the dry stalks and weeds that are burned up, any more than

it is my gloom and regrets that are consumed. An April smoke makes a

clean harvest.

I think April is the best month to be born in. One is just in time, so

to speak, to catch the first train, which is made up in this month. My

April chickens always turn out best. They get an early start; they

have rugged constitutions. Late chickens cannot stand the heavy dews,

or withstand the predaceous hawks. In April all nature starts with

you. You have not come out your hibernaculum too early or too late;

the time is ripe, and, if you do not keep pace with the rest, why, the

fault is not in the season.

V