A LABRADOR SPRING 
three or four yards more, the ripening berries 
of autumn could be found. Here was no 
need of long journeys to pass from winter to 
summer, nor of long tarrying in one place for 
the seasons to pass. The melting snow-drift, 
the brief spring and the short arctic summer 
condensed all the seasons in space and time. 
Spring is a long process in New England. 
From the first appearance of the blue-bird 
and skunk cabbage in early March or even 
in late February, to the departure of the last 
black-poll warbler for the north and the falling 
of the apple blossoms in early June, spring 
dallies along the way for over three months. 
Not only does spring dally in this temperate 
region, but, in its early progress, it sustains 
frequent interruptions — eruptions one might 
call them if that hot word can be used in a 
cold sense — of winter. 
I have always longed to watch the arrival 
of spring in the country, but to absent oneself 
from one’s duties for over three months is 
plainly out of the question. The northern 
spring, however, has its advantages in these 
hustling times; it is a hustler itself. The 
change from mid-winter to mid-summer is so 
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