It is strange that in a spot so specially full of the tokens of last year's life,--the dry grasses, the old oak leaves not yet pushed off by the new buds,--where the only green is of the hemlocks and laurels that have weathered the winter,--it is strange that in such a spot one should feel the immanence of spring. Perhaps it is the bluebird that does it. For it is the bluebird's valley as well as mine. There are other birds there, but not many, and it is the bluebird which best voices the spirit of the place. Most birds in the spring imply an audience. The song sparrow, with the lift and the lilt of his song, sings to the universe; the red-wing calls to all the sunny world to be gleeful with him; the long-drawn sweetness of the meadowlark floats over broad meadows and wide horizons; the bobolink, in the tumbling eagerness of his jubilation, is for every one to hear. But the bluebird sings to himself. His gentle notes, not heard but overheard, are for those who listen softly. And in the Yellow Valley he is at home. I am at home, too, and I find there something that I find nowhere else so well. Its charm is in the simpleness of its appeal:-- "Only the mightier movement sounds and passes, Only winds and rivers--" I bring back from it a memory of sunshine and grass, bird notes and running water, the broad realities of nature. Nay, more than a memory--a mood that holds--a certain poise of spirit that comes from a sense of the largeness and sweetness and sufficiency of the whole live, growing world. Spring grass--the rare fragrance of the spring air--is the call. The Yellow Valley holds the answer. V Larkspurs and Hollyhocks "Jonathan, let's not have a garden." "What'll we live on if we don't?" "Oh, of course, I don't mean that kind of a garden,--peas and potatoes and things,-- I mean flowers. Let's not have a flower garden." "That seems easy enough to manage," he ruminated; "the hard thing would be to have one." "I know. And what's the use? There are always flowers enough, all around us, from May till October. Let's just enjoy them." "I always have." I looked at him to detect a possible sarcasm in the words, but his face was innocent. "Well, of course, so have I. But what I mean is--people when they have a country place seem to spend such a lot of energy doing things for themselves that nature is doing for them just over the fence. There was Christabel Vincent last summer, grubbing over yellow lilies, or something, and I went over into the meadow and got a lovely armful of lilies and brought them in, and no grubbing at all." "Perhaps grubbing was what she was after," said Jonathan. "Well, anyway, she talked as if it was lilies." "I don't know that that matters," he said. Jonathan is sometimes so acute about my friends that it is almost annoying. * * * * *