The Spring of the Year

ock of hens; a weakly fluttering pullet; and yonder, swinging upward into the sky, a marsh hawk,

d so quickly. I ran to the pullet, but found her dead. The harrier's stroke, delivered with fearful velocity, had laid head and neck open as with a keen knife. Yet a little slower and he would have missed, for the pullet wa

into the open pasture. A huddled group under the hen-yard fence broke up and came out with the others. Death had flashed among them, but had missed them. Fear had come, but i

tree-tops; would sound his alarum at the flight of a robin; and if a crow came over, he would

as it were a

oos he rometh

··

a prince is

o shadow of dread lay dark and ominous across the sunshine of his pas

e form or another Death moves everywhere, down every wood-path and pasture-lane, through the black waters of

, a streak of blue, a splash at the centre of the swirl, and I see the pike twisting and bending in the beak of the terrible kingfisher. The killer is killed. But at the mouth of the nest-hole in

a pall. Everything has seemed to cower, skulk, and hide, to run as if pursued. There was no peace, no stirring of small life, not even in the quiet of the deep pines; f

being, no shape, no lair. The shadow of the swiftest scudding cloud is not so fleeting as this Fear-shadow in the woods. The lowest of the animals seem capable

t only touc

the whole of this life is action; and the whole of this action is joy. The moments of fear in an animal's life are few and vanishing. Action and joy are constant, the joint laws of

mps that lie to the east and north and west of me, that catch up the cry of the foxhounds, that blend it, mellow it, round it, and roll it, rising and f

ural primitive wild thing of muscle and nerve and instinct within me slips its leash, and on past with the pack I drive, the scent of the trail single

ic that all c

, whose love their

part, perhaps, unless we grimly call him its conductor. But the point is the choru

lung against lung, wit against wit, and always escaping. More than once, in the warm moonlight, I, the fox, have led them on and on, spurring their lagging muscles with a sight of my brush, on and on, through the moonlit night, through the day, on into the moon again, and on until-only the stir of m

in a single extended chase after a single fox is a common occurrence here in the woods about the farm. Occasionally the fox may be overtaken by the hounds; seldom,

s the range. But the young fox, after the dogs were caught and taken off the trail, soon sauntered up through the mowing-field behind the barn, came out upon the bare knoll near the house, and sat there in the moonlight yapping down at Rex and Dewey, the house-dogs in the two farms below. Rex is a Scotch collie, Dewey a dreadful

hen-coops, with five hounds not a minute behind. They passed with a crash and were gone-up over the ridge and down into the east swamp. Soon I noticed that the pack had broken

high up and down, his neck stretched, his eye peeled for poultry. Spying a white hen of my neighbor's, he made for her, clear to the barnyard wall. Then, hopping higher for

dge. Let them yelp. It is a kind and convenient habit of dogs, this yelping, one can tell so exactly where they are. Meantime one can take a turn for one's self at the chase, get a bite of chick

ainst the pack of hounds. But, mortal finish or no, the spirit of the chase is neither rage nor terror, but the excitement of a matched game, the ecstasy o

that he loves; it is the moments of crowded, complete, supreme existence for him-"glory" we call it when men run it off together. Death, and the fear of death, the animals can neither understand nor feel. Only enemies exist in the world out of doors, only houn

d neighbors were bloody war, and the whole of their existence a reign of terror. This is a universe of law and order and marvelous balance; conditions these of

at the loo

Mother weav

esh robes for

h hopes for de

a defenseless rabbit, wha

nature than the little cottontail's. They are as wings compared with the bent, bow legs that bear up the ordinary rabbit-hound. With winged legs, protecting color, a clear map of the country in his head,-its stumps, railpiles, cat-bri

nd pass yelping within a few feet of him, but waiting on h

ing tail. I have waited at the end of the wood-road for the runners to come back, down the home-stretch, for the finish. On they go through the woods, for a quarter, o

wa

I hear the pit-pat, pit-pat, of soft furry feet, and there at the bend is the rabbit. He stops, rises high up on his haunches, and listens. He drops again upon all fours, scratches himself behind the ear, reaches over the cart-rut for a nip of sassafras,

when down the hillside toward them rushed a little chipmunk, his teeth a-chatter with terror; for close behind him, with the easy, wavy motion of a shadow, glided a dark-brown animal, which the man took on the instant for a mink, but which must hav

ged, growling and snarling and avoiding the stick, not a bit abashed, stubbornly holding his own, until forced to seek refuge among the br

ally powerless with fear. His eyes will close, his whole tiny body throb convulsively with his throbbing heart. Taking him to the door, I will turn him over and give him a gentle toss. Instantly his wings flash; they take him z

completely as the collapsed rubber ball is rounded by the laws of its being. The memory of the f

es or wrongs him, and the huge beast harbors the memory, broods it, and awaits his opportunity for revenge. Yet the records of these cases usually show that the creatu

m Berry. But not if he approach them wearing an overcoat. At sight of me in an overcoat the off ox will snort and back and thrash about in terror, twisting the head of his yoke-fellow, nearly breaking his neck, and trampling him miserably. But the nigh ox is used to it. He chews and bli

smell of which probably suggested to the creature some natural enemy, a panther, perhaps, or a bea

hinder them from forgetting, or prevent them from hoping, or, for more than an instant, stop them from doing. Such is the law of life-the law of heaven, of my pastures, of the little junco, of myself. Life, Law, and Matter are all of one piece. The horse in my stable, the robin, the toad, the beetle, the vine in my garden, the garden itself, and I together with them all, come out of the same divine dust; we all breathe the same divine breath; we ha

ey pass utterly away; for the face of the fields does not grow old or wise or seamed with pain. It is always the face of a child,-asleep in winter, awake in spring and summer,-a face of life and health always, as much in the falling leaf as in the opening bud,