“My, it must be awful to think you’re safe and then find you’re trapped! I guess I won’t ever hunt coons any more. I used to think it was fun, but I never thought how the coon must feel. Now I know and--and--well, a live coon is a lot more interesting than a dead one, anyway. Funny what I find out on this old wishing-stone. If I keep on, I won’t want to hunt anything any more.” Tommy got up, stretched, began to whistle as if there was a load off his mind, and started for home, still whistling. And his whistle was good to hear. CHAPTER FOUR HOW TOMMY ENVIED HONKER THE GOOSE The feel of spring was in the air. The sound of it filled Tommy’s ears. The smell of it filled his nostrils and caused him to take long, deep breaths. The sight of it gladdened his eyes, and the joy of it thrilled his heart. For the spring, you know, has really arrived only when it can be felt, heard, smelled, and seen, and has the power to fill all living things with abounding joy and happiness. Winter had been long in going. It seemed to Tommy that it never would go. He liked winter. Oh, yes, Tommy liked winter! He liked to skate and slide, to build snow forts and houses, and make snow men. He liked to put on his snow-shoes and tramp through the Green Forest, for many are the secrets of the summer which the winter reveals to those with eyes to see, and Tommy was trying to train his eyes to be of that kind. But when it was time for winter to go, he wanted it to go quickly, and it hadn’t. It had dragged on and dragged on. To be sure, there had been a few springlike days, but they had been only an aggravation. But this day was different, and Tommy knew that at last spring had arrived. It was not that it was long past time, for it was now almost April. It was something more. It was just a something that, throbbing all through him, told him that this time there was no mistake--spring was really here. There was a softness in the touch of gentle Sister Southwind which was like a caress. From over in the Green Forest came the gurgle of the Laughing Brook, and mingling with it was the soft whistle of Winsome Bluebird, the cheery song of Welcome Robin, the joyous greeting of Little Friend the Song-sparrow, the clear lilt of Carol the Meadow-lark, the sweet love call of Tommy Tit, the Chickadee, and under all a subdued murmur, sensed rather than really heard, as of a gentle stirring of reawakened life. So Tommy _heard_ the spring. And in each long breath he drew there was the odor of damp, warm soil such as the earth gives up only at this season. And so Tommy _smelled_ the spring. And looking from the top of the hill above the wishing-stone down across the Green Meadows to the Old Pasture and beyond to the Purple Hills, he saw all as through a soft and beautiful haze, which was neither fog nor smoke, but as if old Mother Nature had drawn an exquisite veil over the face of the earth until it should be made beautiful. And so Tommy _saw_ the spring.