How Spring Came in New England | Page 7

about this time, in the Woods, on the
edge of a snow-bank, the modest blossoms of the trailing arbutus,
shedding their delicious perfume. The bravest are always the tenderest,
says the poet. The season, in its blind way, is trying to express itself.
And it is assisted. There is a cheerful chatter in the trees. The
blackbirds have come, and in numbers, households of them, villages of
them,--communes, rather. They do not believe in God, these black-
birds. They think they can take care of themselves. We shall see. But
they are well informed. They arrived just as the last snow-bank melted.
One cannot say now that there is not greenness in the grass; not in the
wide fields, to be sure, but on lawns and banks sloping south. The
dark-spotted leaves of the dog-tooth violet begin to show. Even
Fahrenheit's contrivance joins in the upward movement: the mercury
has suddenly gone up from thirty degrees to sixty-five degrees. It is
time for the ice-man. Ice has no sooner disappeared than we desire it.
There is a smile, if one may say so, in the blue sky, and there is.
softness in the south wind. The song-sparrow is singing in the
apple-tree. Another bird-note is heard,--two long, musical whistles,
liquid but metallic. A brown bird this one, darker than the song-
sparrow, and without the latter's light stripes, and smaller, yet bigger
than the queer little chipping-bird. He wants a familiar name, this sweet
singer, who appears to be a sort of sparrow. He is such a contrast to the
blue-jays, who have arrived in a passion, as usual, screaming and
scolding, the elegant, spoiled beauties! They wrangle from morning till
night, these beautiful, high-tempered aristocrats.
Encouraged by the birds, by the bursting of the lilac-buds, by the
peeping-up of the crocuses, by tradition, by the sweet flutterings of a
double hope, another sign appears. This is the Easter bonnets, most
delightful flowers of the year, emblems of innocence, hope, devotion.
Alas that they have to be worn under umbrellas, so much thought,

freshness, feeling, tenderness have gone into them! And a northeast
storm of rain, accompanied with hail, comes to crown all these virtues
with that of self-sacrifice. The frail hat is offered up to the implacable
season. In fact, Nature is not to be forestalled nor hurried in this way.
Things cannot be pushed. Nature hesitates. The woman who does not
hesitate in April is lost. The appearance of the bonnets is premature.
The blackbirds see it. They assemble. For two days they hold a noisy
convention, with high debate, in the tree-tops. Something is going to
happen.
Say, rather, the usual thing is about to occur. There is a wind called
Auster, another called Eurus, another called Septentrio, another
Meridies, besides Aquilo, Vulturnus, Africus. There are the eight great
winds of the classical dictionary,--arsenal of mystery and terror and of
the unknown,--besides the wind Euroaquilo of St. Luke. This is the
wind that drives an apostle wishing to gain Crete upon the African
Syrtis. If St. Luke had been tacking to get to Hyannis, this wind would
have forced him into Holmes's Hole. The Euroaquilo is no respecter of
persons.
These winds, and others unnamed and more terrible, circle about New
England. They form a ring about it: they lie in wait on its borders, but
only to spring upon it and harry it. They follow each other in
contracting circles, in whirlwinds, in maelstroms of the atmosphere:
they meet and cross each other, all at a moment. This New England is
set apart: it is the exercise-ground of the weather. Storms bred
elsewhere come here full-grown: they come in couples, in quartets, in
choruses. If New England were not mostly rock, these winds would
carry it off; but they would bring it all back again, as happens with the
sandy portions. What sharp Eurus carries to Jersey, Africus brings back.
When the air is not full of snow, it is full of dust. This is called one of
the compensations of Nature.
This is what happened after the convention of the blackbirds: A
moaning south wind brought rain; a southwest wind turned the rain to
snow; what is called a zephyr, out of the west, drifted the snow; a north
wind sent the mercury far below freezing. Salt added to snow increases
the evaporation and the cold. This was the office of the northeast wind:
it made the snow damp, and increased its bulk; but then it rained a little,
and froze, thawing at the same time. The air was full of fog and snow

and rain. And then the wind changed, went back round the circle,
reversing everything, like dragging a cat by its tail. The mercury
approached zero. This was nothing uncommon. We know all these