As a father's tinkling bell brings the children together, so the snowdrop bells call forth all the other flowers.

First and foremost comes the primrose, and cowslips--Heaven's keys as we call them--open the gates to all the other children of the Spring.

"Come forth, come forth!" the returning birds shout from out the bushes, and silver-grey catkins sprout on every twig.

Beech leaves burst off their sharp, brown sheaths and open to the light, as soft as taffety and as green as emeralds.
The other trees follow the example, and so teach their boughs to make a leafy shade against the sun as it mounts higher.

Every creature that loves its kind finds a voice under the blossoming May, and the dumb forest is full of the call and answer of thankful and gladsome loving things which have met together, and of sweet tunefulness and songs of bridal joy.
Round nests have come into being in a thousand secret places--in the tree-tops, in the thick greenwood of the bushes, in the reeds of the marsh; ere long young living things are twittering there, the father and mother-birds call each other, singing to be of good cheer, and taking joy in caring for their young.