Chapter XI.
The New Year.
As the older people of the Crosswicks Valley found, and the younger element, in later years, too discovered, the nominally long winter drew all too rapidly to a close. Everywhere there was a hint of the coming spring. Noisy blackbirds hovered over the marshy meadows; starlings whistled from the willow hedges; even the song sparrows in Watson's gooseberry hedge sang so cheerfully that Ruth's mother often stopped to listen, and her husband, busy out of doors, seeing his wife bareheaded, at an open door or window, wondered if she were calling him and he had not heard, and so asked if he were wanted, in those harsh tones that silenced every sparrow and caused his wife, after a vigorous negative shake of the head, to shut the door or window in despair.
It was the beginning of the year, and
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