SPRING IN THE CITY
Spring in the City
A thick, creamy, white lather covering that part of our countenance which indicates strength of character, showed that we were about to shave. It is our matutinal custom. Poised in our hand was the lethal weapon with which we perform this painful rite.
At that moment we heard the robin! At that very instant of the morning of Saturday, April the sixth, the voice of the robin was heard in the block. Immediately we threw up the window, and careless of the rather intimate nature of our habiliments, we leaned out over the ledge.
There was no robin in sight. No glimpse of red-breast gladdened our heart. We looked in vain at each of the miniature plots of mud which residents on our street refer to as the "lawn." Nowhere could we see Cock Robin sturdily dragging a large, thick worm from his lair, or waiting with dignified alertness for breakfast to poke up its head. But his voice filled the street, clear and high and vibrant with delight—the very voice of triumphant spring!
"Some class to that whistlin'," said someone below us.
We looked down and saw a dingy man with a bag of tools on his shoulder, who was frankly watching us and grinning with disgusting familiarity. Plumbers never are in a hurry.
"Makes a fella feel like chuckin' his work, don't it?" he persisted.
"It does," we burbled through the lather, and drew in our head with reckless haste. We afterwards discovered some of our back-hair still clinging to the lower edge of the window-frame. But not even the painful presence of a protuberance on our skull where none had been before could banish our joy in that robin's song.
Spring was here at last! It is true there was still much ice in our backyard, and in our neighbor's backyard, and in the backyard beyond his. It is true also that icicles hung from the roofs, and that the water in our bath-tub was still of a temperature to produce curiously mottled effects on our general complexion. But we were happy and we sang as we splashed about, for we knew that spring was here.