Iowa County democrat. [volume] (Mineral Point, Wis.) 1877-1938, 1906-12-27

ceeded by mornings of heavy dew and
clinging mist. We are lucky indeed
when the mist does not drizzle into
rain: for in April, which is only half
summer, you cannot have July heat
without a following reminder that it
is half-winter too. So the bees this
morning are sad lie-abeds, and almost
until noon the honeyed sallow in the
river valley spreads its dew-drenched
blossoms in vain for insect guests.
When the sun lifts the mist the in
sects return in thronging swarms.
and sometimes among the insect eat
ing birds you may chance to see a
bat, Drawing the sunlight and flicker
ing to and fro under the arching
trees. For the bat suffers more than
others, when each warm days sun
makes him restless and hungry, and
each chilly night keeps him still in
bed. So at last he comes out to sat
isfy his hunger in the sunlight, or
perhaps to fall an easy prey to the
darting sparrow-hawk All round
the untimely bat the crowd Of spring
life thickens and the whitethroat
warblers, commonest of our summer
songsters, have added their scrannel
voices to the swelling chorus of the
birds
Each puff of the shifting wind
sends fresh clouds of golden pollen
down the dark avenues of the pine
wood, busting ones coat often as
with powdered sulphur; for, though
the funeal pine seems as far e.
moved as may be from the light friv-
olities of love, it is, to translate the
term of botanists, a "windlover,"
and entrusts its message to the care
less breeze to carry to some unknown
female on a IeiguOoring pine, or,
more often, to the ground. So the
pine has to produce superfuOus
clouds of golden dust, and it's narrow
needle-leayes, offering the least pos
sible obstruction to the floating pol
len, We see one of those niceties of
structure which, in the days before
evolution was taught afforded COM
Portable evidence to the piOus of the
special care of Providence. Not
that we need be less pious because
we believe in evolution, but the old
naturalist stood nearer to God in
daily thought when he saw in each
leaf-blade the unalterable type of His
immemoual handiwOrk. And in a
plnewood, with the dim light falling
upo1 the pillared trunks of its cath
edral nave, it's shadowy, clustered
aisles where the wind chaunts deep
and slow, while the foot falls silent
ly upon the cushioned ground, it were
easy to attune the mind to piety.
AS spring days pass, We scarcely
notice how our outlook grows cir
cumscrbed Instead of the trans
parency of leafless woodland, through
which we could catch the CLINT of
the wood-pigeons white-hecked wings
as it slanted up to its nesting pine
many rods away, now the bronze
green haze of myriad-budded twigs
shuts down upon all vision further
than dozen yafQS. III Ine opeh'
towering elm and there leafng will
low shuts up some vista which gave
glimpses of many fields beyond. But
it is on the closer smaller scale of
hedgerow and shrubbery that we feel
most how Nature in spring draws a
green veil, growing denser every
day, between US and the secret do
ings of her life. She treats us like
children, too and, indeed we are
her children and deserve to be so
Observation-Disclosures the outside of
her green veil with pretty flowers
and making gay butterflies dance be-
fore it to amuse us. So we so for
a walk and rejoice because we see
many things; but the things which
we do not see are countless. Here
is a squat thorn-bush two feet high,
which Will presently fire out volley
of nearly a dozen new-fedged wrens,
and next winter, when the leaves
have fallen, the man who passed
daily within a few feet of it will say,
Bless my soul, fancy a nest in that
bush all the while!"