There was a
softness on the hills. The birds suddenly were on every tree,
glancing through the air, filling it with song, sometimes shaking
raindrops from their wings. The cat brings in one in his mouth. He
thinks the season has begun, and the game-laws are off. He is fond
of Nature, this cat, as we all are: he wants to possess it. At four
o'clock in the morning there is a grand dress-rehearsal of the birds.
Not all the pieces of the orchestra have arrived; but there are
enough. The grass-sparrow has come. This is certainly charming.
The gardener comes to talk about seeds: he uncovers the straw-berries
and the grape-vines, salts the asparagus-bed, and plants the peas.
You ask if he planted them with a shot-gun. In the shade there is
still frost in the ground. Nature, in fact, still hesitates; puts
forth one hepatica at a time, and waits to see the result; pushes up
the grass slowly, perhaps draws it in at night.
This indecision we call Spring.
It becomes painful. It is like being on the rack for ninety days,
expecting every day a reprieve. Men grow hardened to it, however.
This is the order with man, - hope, surprise, bewilderment, disgust,
facetiousness. The people in New England finally become facetious
about spring. This is the last stage: it is the most dangerous.
When a man has come to make a jest of misfortune, he is lost. "It
bores me to die," said the journalist Carra to the headsman at the
foot of the guillotine: "I would like to have seen the continuation."
One is also interested to see how spring is going to turn out.
A day of sun, of delusive bird-singing, sight of the mellow earth,
- all these begin to beget confidence. The night, even, has been warm.
But what is this in the morning journal, at breakfast? - "An area of
low pressure is moving from the Tortugas north." You shudder.
What is this Low Pressure itself, - it? It is something frightful,
low, crouching, creeping, advancing; it is a foreboding; it is
misfortune by telegraph; it is the "'93" of the atmosphere.
This low pressure is a creation of Old Prob. What is that? Old
Prob. is the new deity of the Americans, greater than AEolus, more
despotic than Sans-Culotte. The wind is his servitor, the lightning
his messenger. He is a mystery made of six parts electricity, and
one part "guess." This deity is worshiped by the Americans; his name
is on every man's lips first in the morning; he is the Frankenstein
of modern science. Housed at Washington, his business is to direct
the storms of the whole country upon New England, and to give notice
in advance. This he does. Sometimes he sends the storm, and then
gives notice. This is mere playfulness on his part:
