shall awake to life and activity as soon as the sun-beams shall once more
dissolve the snow, unbind the frozen streams, and loosen the bands which
held them in repose.

At last the spring, the glad joyous spring, returned. The leaf-buds,
wrapped within their gummy and downy cases, began to unfold; the dark
green pines, spruce, and balsams began to shoot out fresh spiny leaves,
like tassels, from the ends of every bough, giving out the most refreshing
fragrance; the crimson buds of the young hazels, and the scarlet blossoms
of the soft maple, enlivened the edges of the streams; the bright coral
bark of the dogwood seemed as if freshly varnished, so brightly it glowed
in the morning sunshine; the scream of the blue jay, the song of the robin
and wood-thrush, the merry note of the chiccadee, and plaintive cry of the
pheobe, with loud hammering strokes of the great red-headed woodpecker,
mingled with the rush of the unbound forest streams, gurgling and
murmuring as their water flowed over the stones, and the sighing of the
breeze, playing in the tree-tops, made pleasant and ceaseless music. And
then as time passed on, the trees unfolded all their bright green leaves,
the buds and forest flowers opened; and many a bright bell our little
squirrels looked down upon, from their leafy home, that the eye of man had
never seen.

It was pleasant for our little squirrels, just after sunset, in the still
summer evenings, when the small silver stars came stealing out, one by
one, in the blue sky, to play among the cool dewy leaves of the grand old
oaks and maples; to watch the fitful flash of the fireflies, as they
glanced here and there, flitting through the deep gloom of the forest
boughs, now lost to sight, as they closed their wings, now flashing out
like tiny tapers, borne aloft by unseen hands in the darkness. Where that
little creek runs singing over its mossy bed, and the cedar-boughs bend