says, "It looks
like the depths of spring." To this has man come: to his
facetiousness has succeeded sarcasm. It is the first of May.

Then follows a day of bright sun and blue sky. The birds open the
morning with a lively chorus. In spite of Auster, Euroclydon, low
pressure, and the government bureau, things have gone forward. By
the roadside, where the snow has just melted, the grass is of the
color of emerald. The heart leaps to see it. On the lawn there are
twenty robins, lively, noisy, worm-seeking. Their yellow breasts
contrast with the tender green of the newly-springing clover and
herd's-grass. If they would only stand still, we might think the
dandelions had blossomed. On an evergreen-bough, looking at them,
sits a graceful bird, whose back is bluer than the sky. There is a
red tint on the tips of the boughs of the hard maple. With Nature,
color is life. See, already, green, yellow, blue, red! In a few
days--is it not so?--through the green masses of the trees will flash
the orange of the oriole, the scarlet of the tanager; perhaps
tomorrow.

But, in fact, the next day opens a little sourly. It is almost clear
overhead: but the clouds thicken on the horizon; they look leaden;
they threaten rain. It certainly will rain: the air feels like rain,
or snow. By noon it begins to snow, and you hear the desolate cry of
the phoebe-bird. It is a fine snow, gentle at first; but it soon
drives in swerving lines, for the wind is from the southwest, from
the west, from the northeast, from the zenith (one of the ordinary
winds of New England), from all points of the compass. The fine snow
becomes rain; it becomes large snow; it melts as it falls; it freezes
as it falls. At last a storm sets in, and night shuts down upon the
bleak scene.

During the night there is a change. It thunders and lightens.
Toward morning there is a brilliant display of aurora borealis. This
is a sign of colder weather.

The gardener is in despair; so is the sportsman. The trout take no
pleasure in biting in such weather.

Paragraphs appear in the newspapers, copied from the paper of last
year, saying that this is the most severe spring in thirty years.
Every one, in fact, believes that it is, and also that next year the
spring will be early. Man is the most gullible of creatures.

And with reason: he trusts his eyes, and not his instinct. During
this most sour weather of the year, the anemone blossoms; and, almost
immediately after, the fai