sweet-singing bobolink, singing, as a Roman-candle fizzes, showers of sparkling notes. If you stand at noon under the tree, you are in a very beehive. The tree is musical. The blossoms seem, for a wonder, to have a voice. The odor is not a rank atmosphere of sweet. Like the cups from which it is poured, it is delicate and sweet. You feel as if there were a timidity in it, that asked your sympathy, and yielded to solicitation. You do not take it whether you will or not, but, though it is abundant, you follow it rather than find it. Is not this gentle reserve, that yields to real admiration, but hovers aloof from coarse or cold indifference, a beautiful trait in woman or apple-tree?

But was there ever such a spring? Did orchards ever before praise God with such choral colors? The whole landscape is aglow with orchard radiance. The hillsides, the valleys, the fields, are full of blossoming trees. The pear and cherry have shed their blossoms. The ground is white as snow with their flakes. Let other trees boast their superiority in other months. But in the month of May, the very flower-month of the year, the crown and glory of all is the apple-tree.

Therefore, in my calendar, hereafter, I do ordain that the name of this month be changed. Instead of May, let it henceforth be called in my kingdom, "The Month of the Apple Blossoms."

AN ANGLER'S WISH*

BY HENRY VAN DYKE

WHEN tulips bloom in Union Square,
And timid breaths of vernal air

Go wandering down the dusty town,
Like children lost in Vanity Fair;

When every long, unlovely row
Of westward houses stands aglow,

And leads the eyes towards sunset skies
Beyond the hills where green trees grow

Then weary seems the street parade,
And weary books, and weary trade:
I'm only wishing to go a-fishing;
For this the month of May was made.

II

I guess the pussy-willows now
Are creeping out on every bough
Along the brook; and robins look
For early worms behind the plow.

The thistle-birds have changed their dun
For yellow coats, to match the sun;

And in the same array of flame

The dandelion show's begun.

*From "The Builders and other Poems," copyright 1897, by Charles Scribner's Sons.

The flocks of young anemones

Are dancing round the budding trees:
Who can help wishing to go a-fishing
In days as full of joy as these?

III

I think the meadow-lark's clear sound
Leaks upward slowly from the ground,
While on the wing the blue-birds ring
Their wedding-bells to woods around.

The flirting chewink calls his dear
Behind the bush; and very near,

Where water flows, where green grass grows, Song-sparrows gently sing, "Good cheer."

And, best of all, through twilight's calm,
The hermit-thrush repeats his psalm.
How much I'm wishing to go a-fishing
In days so sweet with music's balm!

IV

'Tis not a proud desire of mine; I ask for nothing superfine;

No heavy weight, no salmon great, To break the record or my line:

Only an idle little stream,

Whose amber waters softly gleam,

Where I may wade, through woodland shade, And cast the fly, and loaf, and dream:

Only a trout or two, to dart

From foaming pools and try my art:

No more I'm wishing-old-fashioned fishing, And just a day on Nature's heart.

APRIL*

BY LLOYD MIFFLIN

AMONG the maple-buds we heard the tones
Of April's earliest bees, although the days
Seemed ruled by Mars. The veil of gathering haze
Spread round the silent hills in bluest zones.
Deep in the pines the breezes stirred the cones,
As on we strolled within the wooded ways,
There where the brook, transilient, softly plays
With muffled plectrum on her harp of stones;
Onward we pushed amid the yielding green
And light rebounding of the cedar boughs,
Until we heard the forest lanes along,

Above the lingering drift of latest snows The thrush outpour, from coverts still unseen, His rare ebulliency of liquid song!

MRS. JUNE'S PROSPECTUS

BY SUSAN COOLIDGE

MRS. JUNE is ready for school,

Presents her kind regard,

*By permission of the author.

And for all her measures and rule

Refers to the following

CARD

To parents and friends: Mrs June,
Of the firm of Summer and Sun,
Announces the opening of her school,
Established in the year one.

An unlimited number received;
There is nothing at all to pay;
All that is asked is a merry heart,
And time enough to be gay.

The Junior class will bring,
In lieu of all supplies,

Eight little fingers and two little thumbs.
For the making of pretty sand-pies.

The Senior class, a mouth

For strawberries and cream,

A nose apiece for a rose apiece,
And a tendency to dream.

The lectures are thus arranged:
Professor Cherry Tree

Will lecture to the Climbing Class,