128 WAKE-ROBIN 



mildness of the entire winter. Though the mer- 

 cury occasionally sinks to zero, yet the earth is 

 never so seared and blighted by the cold but that 

 in some sheltered nook or corner signs of vegetable 

 life still remain, which on a little encouragement 

 even asserts itself. I have found wild flowers here 

 every month in the year; violets in December, a 

 single houstonia in January (the little lump of 

 earth upon which it stood was frozen hard), and a 

 tiny, weed-like plant, with a flower almost micro- 

 scopic in its smallness, growing along graveled walks 

 and in old plowed fields in February. The liver- 

 wort sometimes comes out as early as the first week 

 in March, and the little frogs begin to pipe doubt- 

 fully about the same time. Apricot-trees are usually 

 in bloom on All-Fool's Day and the apple-trees on 

 May Day. By August, mother hen will lead forth 

 her third brood, and I had a March pullet that 

 came off with a family of her own in September. 

 Our calendar is made for this climate. March is 

 a spring month. One is quite sure to see some 

 marked and striking change during the first eight or 

 ten days. This season (1868) is a backward one, 

 and the memorable change did not come till the 

 10th. 



Then the sun rose up from a bed of vapors, and 

 seemed fairly to dissolve with tenderness and 

 warmth. For an hour or two the air was perfectly 

 motionless, and full of low, humming, awakening 

 sounds. The naked trees had a rapt, expectant 

 look. From some unreclaimed common near by 



