April 3. Last night the river “went out.” We were so used, all winter, to its sleeping whiteness, that it seemed as unlikely to change as the outlines of the hills; then came a tumultuous week, and now it is a brown, strong, full-running stream, with swirls and whirlpools of hastening current all over its wide surface. These are indescribable days. The air is sweet with wet bark and melting snow and newly-uncovered earth. The lesser streams are rushing and roaring through the woods. There are little clear dark foam-topped pools under all the spouts, and bright drops falling from rocks and roofs, where there were icicles so lately; and the roads endure miniature floods, from the torrents of snow-water that gush down their gutters and spread the mud in fan-shapes over them. Wherever you stand, you cannot get away from the rushing and trickling and rilling. The whole frozen strength of winter is breaking up in a wealth of life-giving waters.
There is a neglected-looking time for the fields just after the snow goes. The snow-patches recede and leave the soaked grass covered with odds and ends of loose sticks and roots and with untidy wefts of cobweb. The dead leaves lie limp and dank, and are of lovely but sad colors, soft browns and umbers, ash-grays and ash-purples; but in the midst of this waste the ponds are all awake—dimpling, soft water, tender and alive—and their bright blue is a new wonder after our winter world of white and brown and gray.
Robins came yesterday. Their crisp voices woke us with a start, after the winter’s silence. They were busy all over the lawn, and nearly a week ago we heard the first blue-birds and meadow-larks.
The fir boughs that were banked about the houses last fall, for warmth, must be burnt, and bonfires are being lighted all about the fields and gardens. They blaze up into a crackling roar of burning brush, and the smoke comes pouring and creaming out in thick white torrents. The clean, hilarious smell spreads everywhere, the touch of it clings to our hair and clothing. This is a wonderful, Indian time for children, when all sorts of strange inherited knowledge stirs in them. Look at their eyes, as they play and plan round their fires!
THE SOUTH WIND IN MARCH
Cumulus clouds came back, as always, with late winter. Through the autumn, and early winter, clear days are practically cloudless; and cloud-masses, cirrus, not cumulus, herald and follow storms; but with February, the clear-weather summer clouds return. They begin to be trim again, and marshaled, and take up the ordered leisurely sailing of their pretty squadrons.
April 10.