Spring in new England is an ambiguous season bordered by mud on one side and by the startling contrast of dark-green grass against snow on the other; half wanting to be Winter, half wanting to be Summer, hobbled together by my optimism which grows with the lengthening of the daylight. Bright butter daffodils march upstream against the nearly frozen run-off which corkscrews down temporary river-beds, and crocuses greet groggy bumblebees, but Spring is never real for me until I hear the unmistakable, soprano beep-beep, beep-beep of the greenish-brown, web-footed peepers.

I was in the living room rereading the previous Sunday's comics from the not-yet-recycled newspaper. The printed paneling walls were painted with orangey light that gave the impression of illumination from a fireplace if fire was able to remain absolutely still. I folded the large page over and counted the clinks from the radiator before the steam-sound began. There were always eight clinks, and then the room, which had been chilly up to then, filled with the kind of supper warmth that only comes from a fifty-year-old, cast-iron heating apparatus covered with at least a quarter of an inch of paint.

Then the phone rang -- an anachronistic jingle from a copy of an old-fashioned rotary phone that for some reason has electronic push buttons. I picked it up and said, "hello", which is what I always say when answering a phone, and the voice from the other end told me that, "it was happening tonight". Then she told me who she was and why she was calling and where to meet them; and I was glad that I had asked for water-proof boots for Christmas.

It was dark outside when I emerged onto the banistered-porch; myself covered in a green, goose-down jacket; and gloves of a green just different enough to make me look like I didn't care about clothes, which I don't; and most importantly, the even-more-different-green of my new, water-proof boots. The moonless sky displayed its stars like fine jewelry and wore perfume that smelled like chimney-smoke and fog. I drove my car, trying to remember the voice's directions, losing myself under cones of street-light sunbeams, and roads who had lost their signs; finally arriving at a half-moon-shaped clearing by the shoulder surrounded by the shadows of stark maple limbs reaching up like nightmares. At least twenty figures stood in the center of the clearing, their voices muffled by the night and the berber carpet of wet leaves soaked in newly melted snow. Each figure carried a flashlight. Some held them under their chins making ghostly sounds, but most aimed them at the ground -- at whatever obstacles or wild animals may be in their path, reflecting just enough light around their ankles so that I could see that they all were wearing the same kind of green, water-proof boots that I had removed from the golden wrapping paper on Christmas morning; the same kind of green, water-proof boots that were protecting my own feet that night.

My car's headlights dimmed with an almost audible quality like an old TV set turning off. The flashlights' beams held the smoky, drifting tails of cold moisture in the air; and I turned my own flashlight on. I held it out to the side like a rapier, like a swordfighter waiting for his opponent to raise his weapon, or surrender, or run. I walked toward the darkened crowd, and dragged the thin blade of battery-driven luminescence along the ground beside me. I swear I could hear it. As I approached, I began to notice the bundled individuals, and their differences. There were old men in long, blue wool coats; and middle-aged ladies in brightly-colored ski-jackets. Younger couples corralled small children between about six and eight-years-old with mittens attached to the sleeves of their jackets. And, a young girl -- maybe ten or eleven years old, as thin as a coat-rack, blonde, pony-tailed, and pale like a doll, with huge dark eyes that might inspire jealousy in an owl. Behind the young girl stood a woman. I would say an older woman, but she seemed not to fit inside the boundaries of age. She was tall and wore a wild mane of shocking silver hair pulled back and tied with what looked like a piece of straw, and a shawl around her shoulders that a widow might own. Her gloveless hands looked like those of a teenage boy, and her lips were smooth and small like rose-petals. She could have been twenty years old. She could have been a hundred and twenty years old. She turned to me as I entered the gathering. Her eyes found the top of my head, drifted down my face, followed the edges of my body down to my green, water-proof boots, and then up to my eyes. Then she spoke to me in a voice that I immediately recognized as the voice on the phone earlier that evening. She put her hands into her coat pockets, smiled at me and said, "will you be warm enough?"

More cars arrived and faded into the blackness when their headlights disappeared, depositing a small number of new individuals who were each greeted by the woman with the silver hair. She said something different to all of them -- not anything especially profound or philosophical, but unique to each.

The crowd bubbled and mumbled. I could feel silent shiverings around me, condensing breath, and a little impatience. Then, a hush like a curtain rising, spilled through the crowd. The woman with the silver hair began to walk toward the trees, and we followed. Crunching small twigs and holding our balance above the shiny, slippery leaves on the ground, we pushed our way through the edge of the woods in the darkness. Our flashlights burned holes into the velvety indigo and lit a narrow path ahead, framed by sinewy saplings which soared up to the canopy, and split into finger-like branches which touched at the top. We shrank to tiny proportions as we walked under the naked forest, under the gothic arches of maples and birches, under the glittering glimpses of the sky.

A sound began -- an almost-sound Ð a high sound like wind far away, which originated from no particular direction, and grew as we marched. Our tiny footprints became more and more silent while we strained our ears to capture the sound. It began innocently, like giggles, expanding with each stride, languageless voices joining in, each one harmonizing, each one singing Ð a chorus of silver coins ringing like thousands of sleigh bells.

Then, the clasped hands of the trees pulled apart and swayed outward as though they had been blown back by a wind that traveled straight up. The sky seeped in, washing stars and planets down in front of us which collected into a pool about twenty feet across. The stars floated on top, but they were reversed now, and they rippled a little. The water was icy-still, smooth and slick, with reeds and grasses perforating the surface here and there. And, the peep-peep, peep-peep of hundreds of tiny animals sounded off the surface of the pool; forming a tiny, tympanic pond that was more alive than I could have imagined it being.

I felt a soft tap throught the sleeve of my jacket and turned to find the young girl with the dark eyes looking up at me. The beam of her flashlight touched the twiggy shore of the pool and she said, "do you think we'll really find one tonight?"

We circled the pool like Stonehenge, our dark forms choreographing misty flames of incandescent illumination, and our water-proof boots testing the stability of the ground inside the pool's edge. The peepers sang so loudly that my ears hurt. I crouched down low, my knees crackling like popcorn, and I followed one voice, one peep-peep. It repeated in perfect rhythm. My ears steered me lower. My eyes drank in as much reflected starlight and flashlight-light as they could and when my irises had expanded to their fullest diameter, I could see, and there clinging to a stick just protruding from the water was a frog, -- so small, it was hardly there at all.

I reached out my hand and nudged the peeper onto my finger. Its skin was cool, and it continued to sing, unaware of me, unaware of being on me. Brownish-green and compact, it must have been about a half an inch long, and it continued to sing. I returned it to its perch, and it continued to sing.

Something moved -- something larger, under the water, with stubby legs and shiny eyes. It disappeared into the mulchy leaves on the bottom, and I looked up to my right, into the face of the youg girl with the dark eyes, just as she too was looking up from the water. She glanced sideways back toward the water, and said, "did I really just see that? I'm only ten, and I know that I tend to imagine things."

"Yes, you saw it."

Just then, a noise, some excitement! Sloshing and a net, and the voice from the phone earlier that evening, from the far side of the pool announced, "we found one!"

We all ran through the gnarled branches and the dark. I don't know how we didn't trip. Flashlight beams criss-crossed each other like twirling batons. We crowded around the net, witha harmonious "oooo. . ." It was flat like a pool skimmer, and in the middle surrounded by some small bits of soggy bark and browned blades of grass, was a spotted salamander. It was as long as my hand, deep plum-purple with lemony spots like buttercup petals. It looked. . . it looked. . . happy.

The young girl with the dark eyes slowly reached out her long, thin hand, stopping just near the animals tail. Her fingers shook just a little, she waited, and then touched it.

"It's real!"

I slept that night wrapped in blankets with my old window propped open with a cut off section of broom-stick, and allowed the far away, near-silence of the peepers to drift in and out of the opening along with the stars. Spring had begun that year like it always does.

That time, I saw it.