CHAPTER m. 

 'TWIXT COLD AND HEAT. 



Typical spring is one of the lost arts : actual spring 

 is the mother of disappointments. Since the February 

 sun began rising more and more to the east, and edged 

 westward along the horizon in the afternoons, I have 

 been looking for some evidence of spring, with her re- 

 puted ethereal mildness ; and I have not found it. The 

 difference between March and December has not been 

 one of importance, even as regards temperature. In- 

 deed, December proved far the more springlike of 

 the two, and during its closing hours the frogs piped 

 merrily. 



And all through March, that month of broken prom- 

 ises, I was lulled to sleep, time and again, by a gentle 

 south wind murmuring in the pines, and dreamed of 

 frogs croaking their satisfaction that there shall be no 

 more winter — for a season. I awoke, and only to find 

 the north wind roaring in those same pines, and the 

 fields snowclad. 



Days of impatient waiting pass ; the thawing of the 

 snow is tardy ; but finally the fields are bare. Surely, 

 now, spring will come. It is near the twentieth day 

 and the well-thumbed almanac says that upon that day 

 spring commences. The sun crosses the line, but who, 

 except astronomers, would imagine anything unusual iu 



