Watch the hole up under that stub of a limb while I tap on the trunk. How sound asleep! But I will wake them. Rap-rap-rap! There he comes—the big barred owl!
Climb up and take a peek at the eggs, but don’t you dare to touch them! Of course you will not. I need not have been so quick and severe in my command; for, if we of this generation do not know as much about some things as our fathers knew, we do at least know better than they that the owls are among our best friends and are to be most jealously protected.
Climb up, I say, and take a peek at those round white eggs, and tell me, Is it spring or winter? Is it the last day, or the first day, or the first and last in one? What a high mix-up is the weather—especially this New England sort!
But look at that! A snowflake! Yes, it is beginning to snow—with the sun crossing the line! It is beginning to snow, and down with the first flakes, like a bit of summer sky drops a bluebird, calling softly, sweetly, with notes that melt warm as sunshine into our hearts.
“For, lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone.” But see how it snows! Yes, but see—
The willows gleam with silver light;
The maples crimson glow—
The first faint streaks on winter’s east,
Far-off and low.
The northward geese, with winged wedge,