I

A Sabbath in the Open

T was a good Sabbath that was kept in the fields and woods; a good Sunday, too, full

of spring hope and heart, and as one stood on the brow of a brown hill, and saw the oaks and apples and maples suddenly alive with bluebirds and robins, with now and then a sparrow, not to mention woodpeckers, coming in on the southwest wind, and heard the exquisite warble of the bluebird from every tree, there stirred in the heart that thrilling pleasure that is almost as poignant as pain, so keen and sudden and serious is its appeal to the hidden life, that reveals itself so reticently and with such hesitations and withdrawals throughout the long wintry season. Here then sounds the emphatic call of Nature: Mistake not; the moment arrives, the harbingers are at hand; my most unselfish child, spring, is busy with the marsh cabbage and busy with the hepatica buds; out again creep the willow pussies that had retired while February froze the air; again swell the poplar and the hazel and alder

aments, this time they may come out and fear naught.

So irresistibly suggest the undertones of Nature, echoing the bluebird and the robin, and telling of the song-sparrow that begins to sing on the verge of the snowdrifts the song he will not cease to sing until November closes tight the sheaths of the buds that are to bloom another year. Of course, one finds the bluejays in fine fettle with their spring whistling to balance their shrill screams; of course the crows are plenty, for they are with us all through the winter. Perhaps the chickadee is never happier than now, as he begins slowly to try his vernal phobe note, while he explores the trees and stumps for those insects which are his food,—a useful as well as a beautiful brave creature. He is life, life sentient and conscious and at work in the realm for which it has been fitted,-life that goes on and can never cease. This lovely creature, so small, so modest, but so unafraid; with clear black poll above that bright and trusting eye; hopping almost at your very feet, is he not the frankest of the bird races? He scarcely suspects a man who behaves

himself.

But the crow that drops inadvertently into the neighbourhood of one of us,-how furtively and silently he departs !-nor makes a note of criticism