On the next morning the bluebird came again, and brought a phebe with him, and the two sang a kind of duet for my benefit. Their harmony was perfect—for "there is no discord in nature." On the following day, at dawn, before the sun arose, I heard the robin rolling off her mellow notes. I looked out and saw a little flock running along on the ground, and picking at the fresh earth, evidently for the purpose of determining its condition. This same flock, I am sure, remained upon my premises during the summer, and had, in fact, possession of them for many years previous. For they appeared every day or two, and grew more and more inquisitive, and examined more closely. A couple finally took possession of this tree, and a couple of that. They commenced "cleaning house." They flitted about from limb to limb, balanced themselves on the dry twigs, as if trying their strength and elasticity, ran themselves away down into the joints, and dissected the crotches, picked up and cast away the dead moss and leaves, and made as much bustle and stir as a woman on May-day.
As I was watching a couple of them one day, while they were busy at work, they seemed quite annoyed at my presence. They flirted off from the tree to a fence near by, with a mellow cry—saying, plainly enough, as they bobbed around, "What! what!" "Any-thing-wrong? Any-thing-wrong?" "Please-go-away—ha-ha-please-go-away."
Some four weeks later, these birds began to build. They went sailing through the air with the timbers of their castle in their mouths. This timber was selected with great care. Straw after straw, and sprig after sprig, was picked up and cast away before the right one was found. They remained with me during their stay north, and returned each succeeding year to the same tree, until the woods all about me were felled, when they deserted me for other quarters.
April shone out at last. Away down in the wild meadows the cowslip pushed up its green head into the sunshine, and along the warm hill-sides the wind-flowers were strewn. How they came there, I cannot tell. The day before it was all bleak, and chilly, and flowerless there. They must have been scattered by the morning rays of light. A melting bank of snow frowned down upon them, close by. Soon the shade-tree sent out its blossoms of lilac, and the dog-wood burst into a pile of snow. The hard, gray, leafless trees stood up sternly around these first daughters of spring, arrayed in their garments of pomp, and looked, as well as inanimate things can look, jealous and uneasy. All over the aisles of the forest lay enormous trunks of trees, like columns about an unfinished temple, thickly coated with a heavy green moss; and there was a smell of bark, and swelling twigs, and struggling roots—such a smell as only the early spring days give out—as though the earth and the forest were just gaping and stretching with a decayed last year's breath, before rousing up to the duties of this.
Then the rivulets began to get into tune. The one that ran tumbling through the woods seemed to be in a very great hurry, and shot around its islands of moss and promontories of tree-roots with great zeal. It had unwound from its reel of light and moisture a green ribbon, that lay along its shores miles and miles away in the wilderness; and the birds slyly bathed themselves in its waters; and now and then a small fish came rushing down with the speed of an arrow, just returning from his winter quarters to the river, probably to enter his name upon the great piscatorial roll preparatory to summer service.
In a basin, just below a little fall of this brook, two or three wood-ducks were ploughing round and round. These wood-ducks are hermits, and secrete themselves in ponds and watery thickets, where silence and shadows prevail. On one of these mornings, ruminating on its banks, sat Venison Styles, his gun resting on the ground, apparently in a profound study. I looked at the old hunter a long time, and his figure was as fixed and immovable as if he were a part of the landscape, and had grown there like the trees about him. What can the old man be dreaming about? thought I. Perhaps he already hears the approaching footsteps of dancing May, her head crowned with flowers, and the music of the thousand birds that supported her train. It was already spring—summer—in his soul. He was thinking of the sports of the coming year, and the light and pomp of the seasons passed before his imagination like the gorgeous pictures of a panorama.
These April days were inspiring. Occasionally a bleak squall of rain or snow obscured the sky, and silenced the music of Nature; but the heavens looked bluer, and the birds sang more lustily, after it passed away. In the latter part of the month the ground became settled, and the frogs, towards evening, and sometimes during the moist, smoky afternoons, sent up their melancholy wailing from the wide wastes of marsh that stretched themselves through the woods and along the river banks. Some of these marshes were ten miles long, and two or three broad; and such a concert of voices as congregated there was never equalled by anything else. I had, and still have, notions of my own about these vocalists. I am sure that they sang under discipline and system—that they performed on different kinds of instruments. Some of them seemed to be blowing a flageolet; others drew their bows across their violins; some played the fife; while here and there might be heard grum twangs, like the twanging of bass-viol strings. He who listened long and closely might detect delicate vibrations of almost every tone in art or nature. Sometimes their voices sounded like the dying echoes of ten thousand bells, all of a different key, yet the tangled melody was an entanglement of chords and discords, and it rolled away, and expired in waves of pure harmony; again, it was like a choir of human voices performing an anthem. I thought I could hear syllables, too—the articulation of words—something like a psalm. Then the words and sounds appeared to change, and, by the aid of the imagination, one would have supposed that the whole community were shouting—delivering political harangues—or that its members had got on a "bust," and were rattling off all kinds of nonsense in a drunken frolic.
April brought with it, too, flying showers and warm sunshine. The grass began to wake up, and scent the air with its sweetness. Along the watercourses the willows unfolded their leaves; the buds swelled in the forests; and the tree-tops were touched with a light shade of brown, and then a shade of green, which grew deeper and deeper each day. Large flocks of pigeons darkened the air, all moving from south to north,—from whence, or to where, I could not tell. A company would sometimes "hold up" for an hour or two, to "feed and rest," like a caravan at an oasis; but they soon took their wings again, and pursued their journey.
The tenants of the ground burst their tombs, and came up for duty. The gopher, and squirrel, and the ant went to work. I noticed a large community of ants who had commenced building a city. Their last year's metropolis was destroyed, and they were compelled to begin from the foundation; and such a stir and bustle was never exceeded. Hundreds of laborers were in the work up to their eyes. Here was one fellow with a grain of sand in his mouth—a rock to him, I suppose—climbing over twigs and dead grass, standing sometimes perpendicular with his load, and not unfrequently falling over backwards, yet struggling away, surmounting all obstacles, until he finally reached the place of deposit. Then there was a class of miners who shot up from their holes, dropped their speck of dirt, wheeled, and shot back again. Trains of them were continually ascending and descending. There was still another class—"blooded characters," most likely—possibly overseers—who did not do any work, but ran around from point to point, as if inspecting the rest, and giving to them directions. Once in a while a couple of workmen would run a-foul of each other, and get into a quarrel—a clinch—a fight—and the "tussle" lasted until they were parted. This colony, I will say, erected a large mound of earth in a very few weeks—gigantic to them as an Egyptian pyramid is to us—in which they lived and labored during the season.
Finally, the swallows, and brown-threshers, and blackbirds, and martins came—not all in a body, but straggling along. The blackbirds appeared first, and might be seen flying about from tree to tree, and fence to fence, near by the upturned furrows that the ploughman had left behind him. Such a saucy troop of pirates as they were! Flocks of them sat about in the oaks, showering a host of epithets upon the said ploughman; then a dozen or more darted down, staggered over the ground, picked up a worm, and dashed away into the oaks again. They scolded, and fretted, and coaxed, and threatened, and nettled about like a belle of sixteen. Some of them were dressed in a suit of glossy black, with a neckcloth of shifting green; others wore red epaulets on their wings; and a flock of them, darting through the air, had the appearance of braided streams of fire, or interlaced rainbows. Towards evening they all went down among the alders and willows by the river, and had a long chat among themselves. They bowed, and twitched, and stretched down one wing, and then the other; lit upon the little twigs, and see-sawed as they sung, and did many other things. They were evidently erecting themselves into some kind of a government for the year—holding a caucus—perhaps an election—deposing an old monarch, or elevating a new; for it was easy to hear them say what they would do, and what they wouldn't—that is, easy for one who has studied the blackbird language—and sometimes an awful threat might be detected, mixed with a great many wheedling words and gracious postures.