The roads are barely thawed. The raw wind is penetrating, and we need our greatcoats to keep out the cold. But look! A flock of robins—twenty of them, dashing into the cedars, their brown breasts glowing warm and red against the dull sky and the dark green of the trees! And wait—before we go down the hill—here behind the barn—no, there he dives from the telephone wire—Phœbe! He has just gotten back, and is simply killing time now (and insects too), waiting for Mrs. Phœbe to arrive, and housekeeping to begin.
Don’t move! There in the gray clouds—two soaring, circling hen-hawks! Kee-ee-you! Kee-ee-you! Round and round they go, their shrill, wild whistle piercing the four quarters of the sky and tingling down the cold spine of every forest tree and sapling, stirring their life blood until it seems to run red into their tops.
For see the maple swamp off yonder—the ashy gray of the boles, a cold steel-color two thirds of the way toward the top, but there changing into a faint garnet, a flush of warmth and life that seems almost to have come since morning!
Let us go on now, for I want to get some watercress from the brook—the first green growing thing for the table thus far!—and some pussy-willows for the same table, only not to eat. (There are many good things in this world that are not good to eat.) If the sun were shining I should take you by way of the beehives to show you, dropping down before their open doors, a few eager bees bringing home baskets of pollen from the catkins of the hazelnut bushes. The hazelnut bushes are in bloom! Yes, in bloom! No, the skunk-cabbages are not out yet, nor the hepaticas, nor the arbutus; but the hazelnut bushes are in bloom, and—see here, under the rye straw that covers the strawberry-bed—a small spreading weed, green, and cheerily starred with tiny white flowers!
It is the 21st of March; the sun has crossed the line; the phœbes have returned; and here under the straw in the garden the chickweed,—starwort,—first of the flowers, is in blossom!
But come on; I am not going back yet. This is the last day of winter. Cold? Yes, it is cold, raw, wretched, gloomy, with snow still in the woods, with frost still in the ground, and with not a frog or hyla anywhere to be heard. But come along. This is the last day of winter—of winter? No, no, it is the first day of spring. Robins back, phœbes back, watercress for the table, chickweed in blossom, and a bird’s nest with eggs in it! Winter? Spring? Birds’ eggs, did I say?
The almanac is mixed again. It always is. Who’s Who in the Seasons when all of this is happening on the 21st of March? For here is the bird’s nest with eggs in it, just as I said.