After you went away we tried to set the bread as we had seen you do it, but it was not a success. The next day it come off the nest with a litter of small, sallow rolls which would easily resist the action of acids.
If you cannot come back will you please write and tell me how you are getting along and how you contrive to insert air-holes into home-made bread?
A HINT of SPRING.
'Twas but a hint of Spring—for still
The atmosphere was sharp and chill—
Save where the genial sunshine smote
The shoulders of my overcoat,
And o'er the snow beneath my feet
Laid spectral fences down the street.
My shadow even seemed to be
Elate with some new buoyancy,
And bowed and bobbed in my advance
With trippingest extravagance,
And when a bird sang out somewhere,
It seemed to wheel with me, and stare.
Above I heard a rasping stir—
And on the roof the carpenter
Was perched, and prodding rusty leaves
From out the choked and dripping eaves—
And some one, hammering about,
Was taking all the windows out.
Old scraps of shingles fell before
The noisy mansion's open door;
And wrangling children raked the yard,
And labored much, and laughed as hard
And fired the burning trash I smelt
And sniffed again—so good I felt!
A Treat Ode
"Scurious-like," said the treetoad,
"I've twittered fer rain all day;
And I got up soon,
And hollered till noon—
But the sun hit blazed away,
Till I jest clumb down in a crawfish-hole
Weary at heart, and sick at soul!
"Dozed away fer an hour,
And I tackled the thing agin;
And I sung, and sung,
Till I knowed my lung
Was jest about to give in;
And then, thinks I, ef it don't rain now,
There're nothin' in singin' anyhow.
"Once in a while some farmer
Would come a driven' past
And he'd hear my cry,
And stop and sigh—
Till I jest laid back, at last,
And I hollered rain till I thought my throat
Would bust wide open at ever' note!
"But I fetched her!—O I fetched her!—
'Cause a little while ago,
As I kindo' set
With one eye shet,
And a-singin' soft and low,
A voice drapped down on my fevered brain
Sayin',—'Ef you'll jest hush I'll rain!'"