Part 11 (1/2)

And you certainly do have chickadees in your woods. If so, then go out any time of day, but go on a cold, bleak, bl.u.s.tery day, when everything is a-s.h.i.+ver, and, as Uncle Remus would say, ”meet up” with a chickadee. It is worth having a winter, just to meet a chickadee in the empty woods and hear him call--a little pin-point of live sound, an undaunted, unnumbed voice interrupting the thick jargon of the winter to tell you that all this bl.u.s.ter and blow and biting cold can't get at the heart of a bird that must weigh, all told, with all his winter feathers on, fully--an ounce or two!

VIII

And then the partridge--you must hear him, bursting like a bottled hurricane from the brown leaves at your feet!

IX

Among the sweet winter sounds, that are as good to listen to as the songs of the summer birds, you should hear: the loud joyous cackling of the hens on a sunny January day; the munching of horses at night when the wild winds are whistling about the barn; the quiet hum about the hives,--

”When come the calm mild days, as still such days will come, To call the squirrel and the bee from out their winter home.”

And then, the sound of the first rain on the s.h.i.+ngles--the first February rain after a long frozen period! How it spatters the s.h.i.+ngles with _spring--spring--spring!_

[Ill.u.s.tration: ”ONE OF THE COVEY CALLING THE FLOCK TOGETHER”]

X

It was in the latter end of December, upon a gloomy day that was heavy with the oppression of a coming storm. In the heart of the maple swamp all was still and cold and dead. Suddenly, as out of a tomb, I heard the small, thin cry of a tiny tree-frog. And how small and thin it sounded in the vast silences of that winter swamp! And yet how clear and ringing! A thrill of life tingling out through the numb, nerveless body of the woods that has ever since made a dead day for me impossible.

Have you heard him yet?

XI

”After all,” says some one of our writers, ”it is only a matter of which side of the tree you stand on, whether it is summer or winter.”

Just so. But, after all, is it not a good thing to stand on the winter side during the winter? to have a winter while we have it, and then have spring? No s.h.i.+vering around on the spring side of the tree for me. I will b.u.t.ton up my coat, brace my back against the winter side and shout to the h.o.a.ry old monarch--

”And there's a hand, my trusty fiere, And gie's a hand o' thine;”

and what a grip he has!

CHAPTER XIII

THE LAST DAY OF WINTER

According to the almanac March 21st is the last day of winter. The almanac is not always to be trusted--not for hay weather, or picnic weather, or sailing weather; but you can always trust it for March 21st weather. Whatever the weather man at Was.h.i.+ngton predicts about it, whatever comes,--snow, sleet, slush, rain, wind, or frogs and suns.h.i.+ne,--March 21st _is_ the last day of winter.

The sun ”crosses the line” that day; spring crosses with him; and I cross over with the spring.

Let it snow! I have had winter enough. Let the wind rage! It cannot turn back the sun; it cannot blow away the ”equinoctial line”; it cannot snow under my determination to have done, here and now, with winter!

The sun crosses to my side of the Equator on the 21st of March; there is nothing in the universe that can stop him. I cross over the line with him; and there is nothing under the sun that can stop me. When you want it to be spring, if you have the sun on your side of the line you can have spring. Hitching your wagon to a star is a very great help in getting along; but having the big sun behind you--

”When descends on the Atlantic The gigantic Storm-wind of the equinox”

is a tremendous help in ridding you of a slow and, by this time, wearisome winter, storm-wind and all.

Almanacs are not much to trust in; but if ever you prize one, it is on the 21st of March,--that is, if you chance to live in New England. Yet you can get along without the almanac--even in New England. Hang it up under the corner of the kitchen mantelpiece and come out with me into the March mud. We are going to find the signs of spring, the proofs that this is the last day of winter, that the sun is somewhere in the heavens and on _this_ side of the equatorial line.