Just a few weeks ago we were in the dead level of winter. The world was a poster in black and white and gray; the dawn came without of a streak light, just slow fading a dark gray into light. But suddenly the sun smiled, the snow melted, the "bottom went the out of roads"; the mailman, who usually dashes merrily by in a flivver at 9 o'clock, came plosh-ploshing by with team and a buggy at noon. The sun went away and we were left with ruts and mud-puddles and needles of ice that were undecided to thaw out or freeze a bit more. Then came rain, incessant rain for hours, drizzling plowed on the sodden black fields and the dead hedges. The wind came up at night and howled desolately. Rain clouds hid the sun in the morning, and suddenly the rain became featherly snow, which blew furiously from the northeast till the whole air was white and the children cried, "Mother Frost is shaking feather-beds now!" The wet white blanket covered the ugly ground, but sodden pools stained the white 'cover here and there. There came colder wind and finer, colder snow. By morning the roads were drifted full, and the sun shone on squeaky-cold a brilliantly world. The snow in the yard lay in hummocks like a colossal meringue.
Looks Like Spring
Now it has thawed again; the snow is all gone but a few scattering streaks in the dead furrows and the hedge rows. Without a single visible change, something about the landscape "looks" like spring. The bursting with very earth seems energy. The children wonder how soon we can clean the yard and transplant baby Dorothy Perkins rose and make the soap and clean out the playhouse (which has been abandoned during winter, with all its glorious outfit of broken crockery and leaky tins and soapbox cupboards and ancient brooder stove). I spend my time restlessly between white-sale catalogs, seed paint catalogs and landscape plans. plant.s say to daddy with the annual glitter in my eye, "It's nearly housecleaning time!" and he answers with a resigned look and the usual twinkle, "Yes, it's high time everything was moved around again!" -Hope.