saddened with the fresh life that was sprinkling him all over with soft hair like a man's. These were sorrow times, for he remembered other mysteriesand his father, unremembered, could not explain them to him. Death and life came quickly, and always to those who did not understand.

But spring came; the cold snow hardened first as though to protect itself, but it sank lower and lower until the grey of the ash heap came through and the chips around the woodpile stuck up to dry. Then it was gone and the grass started, then the flowers; and finally the trees became green and blossomed with shining leaves. The woods behind the house thickened with deep green, spreading their thin winter shadows into wide velvet summer ones. The birds came back to the woods; at night, the frogs and crickets took up the songs they had left off last autumn when the first ice came onto the watering pond. There was a new calf in the corral and three new lambs in the pasture. One morning he stood by the fence, looking into the corral and laughing at the calf trying to walk. Last year he had stood on the lowest pole to look over, but now his long arms rested firmly on the top. He could hear his mother singing in the kitchen, and the birds calling from their secret trees. He looked at the garden plot and the little field beyond the corral. Tomorrow, he thought; he would start to work tomorrow. Today was a day for the woods, for the new flowers, for the frogs leaping into the stream as he walked. Today was a day to lie in the glen and count the clouds and listen to the sound of the birds' songs.

The woods were warm with soft shadows. The birds welcomed him back, and the squirrels raced up the trees and blinked. He knew them; he knew them all. But today, something had changed. Today he felt a sadness as though something had been taken away from the woods. He counted every tree along the path, but none were missing; there were birds everywhere. And the water in the stream rushed down as it had always done. But he felt a sadness.

In the glen he lay upon the warm grass, looking up into the sky, hearing the splash of the water and the quarreling sparrows among the willows, thinking of God and gods, of life and living. None could know, he thought, of change and growth. The singing birds were new birds; the frogs were younger and the trees had grown new branches. He was sad, thinking of the unknown that would come.

His eyes were closed when the whistling came-a melody that was new to the woods; it had a sad tune, but he remembered it; he had heard it before but in a happier way. It was the bird's song he had always loved; but it was sad today. He waited, as though he knew who would soon come through, listening to the song as though he whistled it himself.

The shadow came out across the grass-a shadow that looked almost like his own. And then a man stood at the edge of the glen; he smiled and stopped whistling. But it seemed that the tune went on, wandering lonesome through the trees. The man came close and they smiled like old friends who had

never met.

They talked about dreams, and seas, and winds that would come bringing angry clouds, and willows, snows and frozen streams.

And all the while, the birds kept them company, singing the new sadness. "There are so many dreams," he said to the stranger. "So many things to dream about."

The stranger smiled and understood.

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