THE REPENTANCE OF MAY 



IT was during the early days of May that Earth, 

 which had been romping towards blossom, found a 

 check, broke her amble into a walk, and nearly 

 stopped dead. Flowers liked this shrewish May even 

 less than we did. Even those that thrive on copious 

 watering seemed actually parched in the midst of 

 those almost continuous showers. They seemed more 

 inclined to put out prickles than large, cool leaves, 

 as though their ambition was to ape those paradoxes 

 of the botanist, xerophytes that live in water. 



The gardener told us that the night frosts were 

 to answer for it. We were looking at the sad sweet- 

 peas as he spoke. Many of them thrust out a mere 

 leafless straw from the soil, withered hands of protest 

 against the murderousness of Mother May. We had 

 thought that slugs must have bitten the shoots off, 

 then that the sparrows had been trying their scissors 

 on them in pure mischief. But the gardener said it 

 was the frost. It can only have come for an hour 

 or two hours on one or two early mornings, for when 

 there has been none at midnight and none on getting 

 up, the gardener has assured us there has been a 

 sharp nip. There has been ice, too, for us to see, 

 and that is hanging testimony. But we think the 

 gardener has argued too much from these late frosts. 

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