Fox family has returned to den under our shed. I hear the vixen barking through the trees at night, and she has kicked out fresh dirt from the two entrance holes. The magic time of early April approaches, when the little blackish kits may be seen rolling and tumbling, momentarily alert all together like a school of fish, then back to their fuss and nonsense. The quaking Aspen trees still slumber, and have not yet taken on the faint rose glow that says their fire is rekindled. Winter still hangs here, and we are cabin-feverish and vaguely unsatisfied. The pond is frozen and layered in snow, and the early Spring sun is still too weak to cut the ice away. But I know that, beneath the white shroud, the Pasque Flowers have already been born, although they will show no color until April.

Here in the mountains, Spring is always a confusion of nature. Winter holds tight within her last fortifications. It is only a few clues that present: The Foxes, a certain new slant in the sunlight that wakes us one hour earlier, and a peculiar anxiousness that inhabits the soul.