14° SPRING AT THE CAPITAL. 



mildness of the entire winter. Though the mercury 

 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 microscopic in its smallness, growing 

 along graveled walks, and in old ploughed fields in 

 February. The liverwort sometimes comes out as 

 early as the first week in March, and the little frogs 

 begin to pipe doubtfully about the same time. Apri- 

 cot-trees are usually in bloom on All-FooFs-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 



