Democratic Sentinel, Volume 19, Number 23, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 14 June 1895 — The Whippoorwill’s Song. [ARTICLE]

The Whippoorwill’s Song.

The whippoorwill’s best singing is coincident with that hour of agricultural enchantment—corn-planting time. That used to come “when the leaves of the white oak were as big as rats’ ears;” but this year the hot weather succeeded in hurrying up even the oaks, which usually are not to be beguiled with any such blandishments, and already their leaves are as big as cats’ ears, and the corn—if the agriculturist was wise and foresaw the cold wave—is not yet planted In Massachusetts. But corn-planting time Is the time of keenness and vividness of life in all things. The mere sight of nature is a stimulus and a string to the dullest and laziest nature; for once in their lives the farmer’s boy and the hired man spring to their hoes like madmen, eager to be at work—to have a sort of growing part in the exuberant springing forth of all things. It is an intoxication to smell the fragrant earth. The birds are all wild with joy in the blossoming orchards and the intensely green woods. Corn-plaiiting time! It is the summit of the earth’s creative ecstades—the maddest, if not the most spiritual, of naturaLmoments.— Boston Transcript.