2 THE FRIENDSHIP OF NATURE 



then the snow would fall, bringing blight 

 in spring, or drought would sere the 

 harvest. This year 1 April has over- 

 slept, and March has rudely jostled 

 May, who in confusion takes up April's 

 task, leaving its own for June. 



Here in New England, we have no 

 calendar of Nature, no rigid law of 

 season, or of growth. The climate, a 

 caprice, a wholly eerie thing, sets tra- 

 dition at defiance and forces our poets 

 to contradict each other. The flower 

 which one declares the harbinger of 

 spring may be a lazy vanguard in 

 another year; the fringed gentian, set 

 by Bryant in frayed and barren fields, 

 frosty and solitary, usually follows the 

 cardinal flower, in late September. 



Come into the garden. The wind 

 blows sharply from the north, where 

 the snow still lies, and the clouds 

 hang low, yet it is May-day, and a 

 i 1893. 



