130 AMERICAN GAME. 
lap of summer, that in. good truth, in some years, we 
have no spring at all; and in the most favorable seasons 
the fierce and cutting north-easters of March, with thei 
whirling snow-drifts, their pelting hail-stones, and thei 
incessant scud of inky storm-clouds, render it the mos 
hateful month of all the twelve, and to invalids the mos: 
terrible and fatal. April succeeds; and if one genia. 
day, with a soft breeze from the southward or south. 
westward, and a glimpse or two of watery sunshine, cal] 
the willow-buds to bursting, and a few, the earliest. 
meadow-blooms to blowing; waken thé whistle of the 
blue-bird among the-apple-boughs, and the chirrup of 
the frog from the morasses, the next is sure to follow, 
loaded with sheeted mists sullenly sailing westward 
before a soul-searching and ice-cold gale from Labrador 
or Greenland, and the promise of the year is not only 
deferred, but, it may well be, nipped outright, for that 
the earth has reposed rash faith in the fair but false- 
seeming visage of the skies. 
But, with May, if there be any vernal weather coming, 
we have it present. The fury of the east wind, if not 
quelled, is broken; and we shall have green leaves 
rustling into breezy life, and warblers busy in the 
orchards, brown thrushes vocal in the woodlands, 
swallows skimming the pools and twittering in the 
eaves ;. and last, not least, trout flashing through the 
glassy ripples, as they spring fast and frequent to clutch 
