April Comes In
Walker, Robert Sparks
604 APRIL COMES IN By ROBERT SPARKS WALKER THE dear bright night was filled with frosty needles that pricked the flesh unmercifully. The last thing that I remember well was a constant...
...I got up and dressed...
...Soon the bluets faded into Innocence, and Innocence, in turn, paled into Quaker Ladies...
...Trilliums had just hopped out of bed, and were still in their nightgowns with stockings on their feet...
...The frosty needles seemed to be sharper than they were last night...
...I buttoned up my overcoat and took to the road...
...Jack-in-the-pulpit, and its valet, Green Dragon, had not even raised their green heads from out their leafy quilts...
...My ungloved hands were benumbed, despite the sun's best efforts to quiet the icy atmosphere...
...Inside the storm-proof, frost-proof, and rain-proof cottage it had developed and now was soft and juicy and free from blemishes...
...This makes a fairly good thermometer, and I guessed the temperature at twenty-six degrees above zero...
...In the overflow ground, swamp saxifrage stood up in all its purity, and made a miniature great white way...
...Happy at the prospect of obtaining some paper from the closed factory of one of the world's oldest paper-makers, I forced the limb within reach...
...The last thing that I remember well was a constant flirtation between Orion and Capella which I witnessed through my western window, while the moon lapped the earth greedily with a golden tongue...
...when I lifted out the thick piece of ice, the egg came with it...
...I could almost hear them snoring...
...Bewick's wren seems to sing especially for others, while the mocker apparently sings for his own satisfaction...
...The first is a common selection of the mocker's, but the last is a rare record, hard to play on the avian phonograph...
...When I cut it loose, a ballast inside aroused my curiosity...
...The sunshine that now poured over this elevation was filtered by the naked trees before it reached my worldly niche...
...As I tramped on, my steps led me to the uplands again, where I was attracted by a last-year's hornet nest, clinging persistently to the bough of a large pear tree...
...Gaily behaved peach trees colored the hills about me, interspersed with dashes of white from the pear and plum trees...
...You may think you are nearing Chinese quarters before you reach the bulb of this plant, which illustrates in practice the (slightly amended) song: "How firm a foundation, ye saints of the woods...
...Over phoebe-bridge I trod, so far the sole owner of the great outdoors this morning, since I had seen no other human being...
...The terminal buds of infant buckeye bushes were exactly like whiskbrooms...
...But soon I was laughing heartily as the mockingbird went on to try to convince me that I was also listening to a sparrow-hawk...
...No wonder they were warm and happy...
...When my road with crusty edges led me down into overflow ground, the scene took me back to February, for here the water was frozen stiff, with long prismatic crystal bars that ridged the surface...
...Did you ever dig a trout lily...
...Thus April came in the morning I went to meet her...
...Toothwort was so abundant that I believed it was exceeding anemone in the floral race this morning...
...A cold winter had dared the deciduous trees to take the first step forward, yet a few hornbeams had slipped on their catkins and every now and then a maple tree was seen in bloom...
...I listened wonderingly, amazed at phoebe's early arrival from the warm lands of the South...
...This convinced me that my nose-thermometer had reported weather facts accurately...
...A long ridge in the distant East resembled an infuriated cat, the naked forest trees on its spine raised like stiffened hairs along the back...
...A chickadee followed, persisting in its plaintive "Dee-yahdee, dee-yah-dee...
...This uncommon song of the chickadee, when it beats upon my ear, is so sweet that the dog in my nature wants to respond with a howl...
...I broke the solemn stillness with laughter when I observed the brown leaf-shawls that were drawn so snugly about the anemones' shoulders...
...Attracted by a duck's egg, I kicked out a chunk...
...His is a wonderful voice, and I have yet to hear the mockingbird mimic his song...
...Trout lillies were up by the thousands and many of their nodding yellow blossoms were open...
...These fascinating masterpieces kept my eyes pulled from the roadside, but every now and then I caught a glimpse of a bed of bluets, with color true to their name...
...Greek valerian was peeping heavenward, and what a rich green its foliage owned today...
...They were attached to a little bulb, a reservoir of food and heat...
...A handful of buckeye leaves, recently born, reminded me of infant squirrels...
...What a host of rue-anemones rose up in the leaf-strewn hillside...
...There were marvelous pictures and paintings in the freshly turned soil, plied by plow-brushes under the power of horse and tractor...
...The next conscious moment brought to me the plaintive cry of a phoebe-bird just outside my bedroom...
...But when I reached the meadow, the wild cresses which had been maintaining green rosettes for many weeks, had lifted their floral towers, and the seedpods of many were already finished...
...Bluebells were up and dressed for April days, and their multi-colored bell clusters were beginning to chime the insect hymns, while white shooting stars were thinking favorably of opening within the next week...
...There had been so few warm days thus far that only a few violets with tiny white faces had been able to squeeze in...
...6o$ Beds of whitlow grass spread white napkins in the green meadows as I hastened to a ditch filled with ice antiques...
...Tufted titmice blew hickory bark whistles in the nearby woodlands, but the most persistent singer was Bewick's wren...
...Swamp saxifrage is coarser and naturally stronger than early saxifrage, but is scarcely as prim and delicate-looking as its brother that prefers higher ground...
...In the tangles west of phoebebridge I took to the undergrowth, beneath muscular arms of Quaker-gowned beeches, and bumpy barked hackberry trees...
...I proceeded to my room, carrying my trophies, while the bluebirds flew and chattered about as if they knew something of the delights that come to one when he ventures into the outdoor world with both eyes wide open...
...This lasted only a short time, however, for soon I got the sunshine straight...
...Down to the swamp, gravity and instinct pulled me...
...The weight broke loose and stuck its nose out of the lower opening, and I experienced a thrill that few people ever have the opportunity of receiving...
...I wrinkled up the flesh and skin of my nose to see how quickly the creases, or nose-waves, would smooth down again...
...Last summer the worker hornets had anchored their summer cottage of paper on a twig where a pear was just starting out in life, and the young fruit had become completely hooded in the paper nest before it was half grown...
Vol. 5 • April 1927 • No. 22
