172 SIGNS AND SEASONS 



landscape would be, how much earlier spring Avould 

 come to it, if every square yard of it was alike 

 moist and fertile. As the later snows lay in patches 

 here and there, so now the earliest verdure is irregu- 

 larly spread over the landscape, and is especially 

 marked on certain slopes, as if it had blown over 

 from the other side and lodged there. 



A little earlier the homesteads looked cold and 

 naked; the old farmhouse was bleak and unattrac- 

 tive; now Nature seems especially to smile upon 

 it; her genial influences crowd up around it; the 

 turf awakens all about as if in the spirit of friendli- 

 ness. See the old barn on the meadow slope; the 

 green seems to have oozed out from it, and to have 

 flowed slowly down the hill; at a little distance it 

 is lost in the sere stubble. One can see where 

 every spring lies buried about the fields; its influ- 

 ence is felt at the surface, and the turf is early 

 quickened there. Where the cattle have loved to 

 lie and ruminate in the warm summer twilight, 

 there the April sunshine loves to linger too, till the 

 sod thrills to new life. 



The home, the domestic feeling in nature, is 

 brought out and enhanced at this time; what man 

 has done tells, especially what he has done well. 

 Our interest centres in the farmhouses, and in the 

 influence that seems to radiate from there. The 

 older the home, the more genial nature looks about 

 it. The new architectural place of the rich citizen, 

 with the barns and outbuildings concealed or dis- 

 guised as much as possible, spring is in no hurry 



