creaked, and the sparrows hopped about in the ruts, and shivered. "Piep! when will Spring come? it is very long in coming!"

"Very long," sounded from the snow-covered hill, far over the field. It might be the echo which was heard; or perhaps the words were spoken by yonder wonderful old man, who sat in wind and weather high on a heap of snow.

"Who is that old man yonder?" asked the sparrows.

"I know who he is," quoth an old raven, who sat on the fence-rail. "It is Winter, the old man of last year. He is not dead, as the calendar says, but is guardian to little Prince Spring, who is to come. Yes, Winter bears sway here. Ugh! the cold makes you shiver, does it not, you little ones?"

"Yes. Did I not tell the truth ?" said the smallest sparrow; "the calendar is only an invention of man, and is not arranged according to Nature! They ought to leave these things to us, who are born cleverer than they."

And one week passed away, and two passed away. The sunbeam glided along over the lake, and made it shine like burnished tin. The snowy covering on the field and on the hill did not glitter as it had done; but the white form, Winter himself, still sat there, his gaze fixed unswervingly upon the south. He did not notice that the snowy carpet seemed to sink as it were into the earth, and that here and there a

little grass-green patch appeared, and that all these patches were crowded with sparrows.

"Kee-wit! kee-wit! Is Spring coming now?"

"Spring!" The cry resounded over field and meadow, and through the black-brown woods, where the moss still glimmered in bright green upon the tree trunks, and from the south the first two storks. came flying through the air.

"WHEN THE GREEN GITS BACK IN THE TREES"*

BY JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY

IN THE spring when the green gits back in the trees, And the sun comes out and stays,

And your boots pull on with a good tight squeeze,
And you think of your barefoot days;

When you ort to work and you want to not,
And you and yer wife agrees

It's time to spade up the garden lot

When the green gits back on the trees

Well, work is the least of my idees

When the green, you know, gits back in the trees.

When the green gits back in the trees, and bees

Is a buzzin' aroun' agin,

In that kind of a lazy "go-as-you please"

Old gait they hum roun' in;

* By permission of the publishers, Bobbs-Merrill Co.

When the ground's all bald where the hayrick stood,
And the crick's riz, and the breeze
Coaxes the bloom in the old dogwood,

And the green gits back in the trees

I like, as I say, in sich scenes as these,

The time when the green gits back in the trees.

When the whole tail-feathers o' winter-time
Is all pulled out and gone,

And the sap it thaws and begins to climb,
And the sweat it starts out on

A feller's forrerd, a-gittin' down
At the old spring on his knees —
I kind o' like jes' a-loaferin' roun',
When the green gits back in the trees

Jes' a-potterin' roun' as I — durn — please

When the green, you know, gits back in the trees.

THE FIRST OF APRIL

BY MORTIMER COLLINS

Now, if to be an April fool

Is to delight in the song of the thrush,
To long for the swallow in air's blue hollow,
And the nightingale's riotous music-gush,
And to painted vision of cities Elysian
Out away in the sunset-flush-

Then I grasp my flagon and swear thereby,
We are April fools, my love and I.

And if to be an April fool

Is to feel contempt for iron and gold,
For the shallow fame at which most men aim

And to turn from worldlings cruel and cold
To God in His splendor, loving and tender,

And to bask in His presence manifold -
Then by all the stars in His infinite sky,
We are April fools, my Love and I.

SONG: A MAY MORNING

BY JOHN MILTON

Now the bright morning star, Day's harbinger,
Comes dancing from the East, and leads with her
The flowery May, who from her green lap throws
The yellow cowslip and the pale primrose.
Hail, bounteous May, that doth inspire

Mirth, and youth, and warm desire;
Woods and groves are of thy dressing,
Hill and dale doth boast thy blessing.
Thus we salute thee with our early song.
And welcome thee, and wish thee long.

SPRING MAGIC

BY CHARLES DICKENS

WHAT man is there over whose mind a bright spring morning does not exercise a magic influence?

Carrying him back to the days of his childish sports, and conjuring up before him the old green field with its gently waving trees, where the birds sang as he has never heard them since, where the butterfly fluttered far more gaily than he ever sees him now in all his ramblings, where the sky seemed bluer, and the sun shone more brightly, where the air blew more freshly over greener grass and sweeter-smelling flowers, where everything wore a richer and more brilliant hue than it is ever dressed in now! Such are the deep feelings of childhood, and such are the impressions which every lovely object stamps upon its heart!

WHY YE BLOSSOME COMETH BEFORE YE LEAFE*

BY OLIVER HERFORD

ONCE Hoary Winter chanced-alas!
Alas! hys waye mistaking-

A leafless apple-tree to pass

Where Spring lay dreaming. "Fie, ye lass!
Ye lass had best be waking,"

Quoth he, and shook hys robe, and, lo!
Lo! forth didde flye a cloud of snowe.

*From "The Bashful Earthquake and other Fables," copyright 1898, by Oliver Herford; published by Charles Scribner's Sons.