West of the walk leading from the south to the Reservoir Castle in the park there is a little brick path, steep and uneven and running crookedly downward like a mere mood of the sober walk itself. The path is railed in from the crowding green things on either side, but the rail hardly thwarts a magnificent Forsythia which tosses its sprays to curve high over the way like the curve of wings in flight. It was a habit of ours to seek out this path once or twice every Spring and to stand beneath these branches. Some way when we did that we were sure that it was Spring, for we seemed to catch its high moment; as for another a bell might strike somewhere with “One, two, three: Now it is the crest of May. Four, five, six: Now this apple-tree is at the very height of its bloom. This is the moment of this rose.” We called this path the path of In-the-Spring. We always went there in the mornings, for in Spring we think that it seems to be more Spring in the morning than in the afternoon. And it was here of an April Nine-o’clock that we saw our first pair of grosbeaks of the year.
They alighted quite close to us as if for them we were not there. They were on some pleasant business of testing the flavour of buds and the proud, rose-throated male, vibrating his wings the while, gave us his note as if he were the key to the whole matter. And I think that he was .. .—.....⌒⌒.—.—? he imparted, and it was like revelation and prophecy and belief; so that for a moment we were near knowing what he meant and what he is and what we and the Forsythia are. But the information escaped us and the grosbeaks flew away. However, they left us their blessing. For there was a little glow in our hearts at having been so near.
“Now,” Pelleas said as we mounted the steep path back to the real walk (so innocently absorbed the real walk looked and as if it knew nothing at all about its gay little aberration of a path!). “Now, that must mean something.”
“Of course it must,” said I contentedly. “What must, Pelleas?”
He answered solemnly: That when a bird or a child or a wood-creature shows you confidence it always indicates that something pleasant is about to happen. I detected his mood of improvisation; but who am I to dissent from an improvisation so satisfying?
We sat on the first bench and Pelleas drew out our March-April record. In a little town of the West which we know and love there is kept each Spring on the bulletin board of the public library a list of dates of the return of the migratory birds with the names of those who first saw and reported them; and there is the pleasantest rivalry among the citizens to determine who shall announce the earliest appearances. From time to time through the Spring this list is printed in the daily newspaper. Since we knew of this beautiful custom Pelleas and I have always made a list, for Spring. That day our record read:—
| March | 9th | Robin, | Pelleas. |
| March | 10th | Bluebird, | Etarre. |
| March | 12th | Phœbe, | Etarre. |
| Note.—Earliest we have seen in five years. | |||
| March | 16th | Geese (flying), | Pelleas. |
| March | 21st | Song Sparrow, | Pelleas. |
| March | 21st | Meadow Lark, | Pelleas. |
| Note.—Not perfectly certain. Nearly so. | |||
| April | 5th | House Wren, | Etarre. |
| Note.—Did not see it. Heard it. | |||
| April | 12th | High Holder, | Etarre. |
| April | 14th | Sparrow Hawk, | Pelleas. |
| Note.—May have been a pigeon hawk. | |||
| April | 29th | Rose-breasted grosbeaks (pair), | Etarre and Pelleas. |
“It sounds like a programme of music,” I said.
“All lists are wonderful things,” said Pelleas, folding ours away in his portmonnaie; “one ought to ‘keep’ a great many.”
I did not at once agree. To be sure I believe passionately in lists of birds; but in the main I profess for lists a profound indifference. As for “keeping a diary” I would as soon describe a walk in the woods by telling the number of steps I had taken.