EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 153 
and sail to Ball’s Hill. It is fine, clear weather, 
and a strong northwest wind. What a change 
since yesterday ! Last night I came home 
through as incessant heavy rain as I have been 
out in for many years, through the muddiest 
and wettest of streets, still partly covered with 
ice, and the rain-water stood over shoes in many 
places on the sidewalks. I heard of several 
who went astray in this water, and had adven¬ 
tures in the dark. You require India-rubber 
boots then. But to-day I see the children play¬ 
ing at hop-scotch on those very sidewalks, with 
a bed marked in the dry sand. So rapid are 
the changes of weather with us and so porous 
our soil. 
A new phase of the spring is presented, a 
new season has come. We no longer see drip¬ 
ping, saturated russet and brown banks through 
rain, hearing at intervals the alarm notes of 
early robins, banks which reflect a yellowish 
light, but we see the bare and now pale-brown 
and dry russet hills. The earth has cast off 
her white coat and come forth in her clean- 
washed, sober, russet, early spring dress. As 
we look over the lively tossing blue waves for 
a mile or more eastward and westward, our 
eyes fall on these shining russet hills. Ball’s 
Hill appears in the strong light, at the verge 
of this undulating blue plain, like some glo- 
