JANUARY. 13 



snow-squalls on the mountains. Here, the meadows and 

 uplands alike have been bare for days, save a few thread- 

 like remnants of the deeper drifts; and now we are 

 having that spring-like interim which all know as a 

 " January thaw." 



I can find no descriptive reference to this feature of 

 the year's first month, nor can date the origin of the 

 familiar phrase. 



Let but a little noonday warmth moisten the tapering 

 tip of an icicle, and the village weather-prophet straight- 

 way predicts a coming thaw ; but just what degree of 

 mildness and how much melting of snow and ice is ne- 

 cessary to make the thaw a typical one remains to be de- 

 termined. Certainly, it very seldom happens that all 

 frost disappears if the preceding December has been cold. 



That I might gather information on the subject, I re- 

 cently visited two places near by, where the graybeards of 

 the neighborhood most do congregate — ^the cross-roads 

 smithy and the tavern opposite. 



I found Benajah Bush at the former, and fortunately 

 in a communicative mood. " Do we always have a Janu- 

 ary thaw ? " I asked. 



" Yes," he promptly replied, and then added, " no, not 

 always, but most generally." 



" What is the January thaw ? " I then asked. 



" Why, it's what we're havin' now ; a regular break-up, 

 and the snow gone and the river open " ; and then, after 

 a pause, he added, " We're pretty sure to have it, as I've 

 noticed for the last sixty years." 



" But it often happens," I replied, " that we have no 

 winter until Christmas ; and how are we to have a thaw, if 

 there has been no freezing? " 



" That's so, and them's the years that we skip the 

 thaw," Benajah remarked, meditatively. 



" And it's the case in about one half of our winters, so 



