CHAPTER III. 

 A SPRING RAMBLE BY THE ITCHEN. 



SPRING ramble, do I say? 



To be sure, by all law and precedent, there can- 

 not be any doubt that this is spring-time, for we are 

 in the first week of April, the month when the sealed caskets 

 of nature silently and gradually unlock in beautiful response 

 to warm sunshine and soft showers. At least so used it to 

 be; but the grand vernal movement for which we have 

 hoped so intensely during the murderous blasts of a severely 

 protracted winter seems still reluctant to gladden our eyes 

 in its full April measure. The farmers and gardeners do 

 not object to a little reasonable backwardness of season, for 

 anything in the shape of forwardness, you may generally 

 take it, with most kinds of vegetation, as with men and 

 women, boys and girls, is unsafe, and not to be desired by 

 those who are wise enough to look to ultimate issues. Yet 

 it would be pleasanter, as we sally forth, were we not cut 

 and slashed so mercilessly by the bitter wind, and were we 

 able to realize even in a faint degree all the sweet adjuncts 

 with which poets invest April skies and spring landscapes, 



