When is a lion like a laundress?
Conundrums to the Queen.
May.
“May, the delicate-footed May, the month of flowers and song-birds, of bland and balmy breezes and genial sunshine, the poet’s month, has come at last.” Yes, it has come; but the first of May, in New England, does not always bring the song of birds, or the bloom of flowers. In England, the spring is a very beautiful season, and May is ever a month of bloom. The first day of the month is one of rejoicing. The people in the villages assemble, erect a pole, and, decked in flowers, they dance around it. In France the people meet together, and one of the girls is chosen queen of the festivity. They have a very gay time of it. Sometimes the season is sufficiently advanced here, to admit of a similar celebration. In Pennsylvania, and the states south of it, May is a season of general bloom.
In New York, the first day of May is usually occupied by the people in getting their furniture from the houses they are going to leave, to those they are going to live in. “The first of May!” says one of the New York editors, “there is something moving in the very name.” The following lines are descriptive of the occasion:
Bustle, bustle, clear the way,
He moves, we move, they move to-day;
Pulling, hauling, fathers calling,