The Manchester journal. [volume] (Manchester, Vt.) 1861-current, 1872-05-02
COUNTRY SICKNESS.

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/ The warm days of the past week
have caused onr city cousins to sigh
for the balmy, pure, healthgiying couu-
TRY breazes A writer in the Golden
Agc thus discourscs Of country sick
mess
There is an aimcut not so common
! or so well understood as home sickness
or sea sickness. II is country sick
ness, and comes with the first bright,
warmish days, when we begin to sus-
pect the current Of the year has turned
toward summer blue bird hopping
in the bare boughs Of a wild plum tree
out in the field, and singing ftfully,
while the wind pipes shrill, is the most
we have besides the lengthening days
and the almanac TO help towards q
guess at springs approach. The sky
is blue, and the air, though not milder,
has a different touch. Something fresh
and blithc diiluses itself about the
world, There is frost in the ground,
and ice on the pools forming over night
a thin glaze, and melting in the noon
sunshine. There are little Aurries Of
snow that sprinkle the sides Of hay
stacks, and make short-lived DOWN.
ness about last years stubble, The
world was not 50 bare in November as
it is now, for the winter winds have
swept up the fields, aud whirled away
every dead leaf and bit OF straw by the
touch gifts bosom. The season looks
as if it had been born TO soon--before
its clothes are ready. It's nakedness
appeals to Us tenderly, and the miracle
which will covey, and pad and
swathe every bare clod and dry rafting
reed, often as it has been witnessed
aud reioiced in, is az yet almost beyond
the range Of our fancy.
Spring days in town are full of irri-
tations, trying to the temper Nature
seems bent on cleaning out her dust
holes and coal bins, but there still do
come floating essences Of flowers, faint
hints Of blessed change that gets
caught in among the dull houses, and
patches Of vivid blue sky, and are
helped along in their influence by the
chirp Of the sparrow outside in The
ailantus tree, which we earnestly wish
somebody would cut down and burn
up with fire before next blooming time.
This is the season for the worst coun.
Try sickness hunger, an aching, a
longing for open spaces, impotence
with confined street and stone pave
mcnts The first sniff of spring breez-
es makes us restless with a restless.
ness which docs not come even in the
bot July days. We must get out into
somebody's wood lot or pasture ground. |
We must have our walk over the sod
den brown turf just to start up a bird
or hear il singing we know not where
like a disembodied joy. The long leg
gcd, mouse.colored colt pokes his head
over the stone wall, where the dead
looking brambles rustic in the wind |
What a thicket Of beauty that old wall /
will be in Junel There at the fields end I.
grew dog roses, and milkwecd, alder
bushes and pride Of the meadow, and
blackberry vines, which viii be stud .
ded with white flowers as thickly as
stars The colt starts away, and plays
bis awkward gambols while the dam,
with flowing name aud tail, looks on al
the youthful capers Of her offspring
with philosophie calm The bark Of
the watch dog down there at the farm.
house ls changed. II las spring note
in is brief gamut The very hens have
a new cackIe. The cock crows now
with a iuhilaut protracted cresccndo, I
as IL conscious Of the heightened days
glad II more time for scratching aud
s,rutting among the females There,
ia the crotch Of the snake fence, per
haps we shall come upon the FIRST tuit .
~ new grass. Ii il more to us now
than d garden fulI q flowers viii he IN 4
July Doubtless We shall kuecl down
and huger The slender blades lovingly .
reioieed that they gfca q themselves, .
out Il La1 eiod, giving promise d
grass aplaais and biliowy meadows
with a white and rosy ioam Of tossing
blossoms five should chance upon
the arsl pale violet grisella among
flowers 81 pall.d ahemone. made 81
taa litar sun aad TOO many tears per-
hsps tits sickness 81 tie heart after
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