The new Northwest. [volume] (Portland, Or.) 1871-1887, 1876-04-21
THE FARDY SEASON.


AS the season advances in fact, but
not in seeming, anxious eyes speaking
the wishes of hearts bounding with an
ticipations of pleasure, are cast toward
the skies which the wayward moods of
April cause to lower, now with "por-
tent seeming less than threat" and
again to weep as in boisterOus indigna-
ton.
From the bosom of our common
mother earth, sodden with the incessant
rains of six months, the balmy airs
and stray CLEANS of sunshine have
-coaxed the grasses, while occasionally
strange little wood flowers and curled
and brittle ferns peep out, only to be
drenched for their temerity.
The plowman, driven from his furrow
in October and persistently kept from it
during the months that have intervened,
vainly essays to repossess it and thinks
auxiously of the harvest that will be
not, unless winter speedily yields the
year to spring. "1
"Lost springs at memory's heart
strings gently pull" aswe view through
the window the crimson fire of bursting
maple buds, or the shy promise of fra
GRANGE by the lilac bushes. Birds, as if
impatient of the delay to which the
lOng-continued moisture subjects their
annual nest-building, pipe and call to
each other in tones almost querulous.
Children, snuffing the woody odors
from afar, don their rusty waterproofs
as in December, and with hopeless looks
cast at the lowering sky, wonder if it
will ever stop raining.
The busy housewife, with head envel-
oped in towel, vigorously plies the dust
brush and sighs audibly for just one
week of sunshine so the house-cleaning
can be attended to. Meanwhile the
days steal on apace; April has counted
more than half her allotted time from
her calendar, and stands ready, to all
appearance, to weep away the remain
der.
Persons talk of the near approach of
the picnic season, as they gather their
shawls closer, button their great coats
more snugly, and take more deter
mined grip upon their umbrellas. But
we take courage and consolation from
the fact that this gloomy state of things
cannot long continue, for:
"From fields and far hiIlsides
Comes sitting through the south winds drowsy
wings,
And floating out on all It's unseen tides,
The scent of budding things.
"In hollows still and brown,
By rocks and knotted roots in quiet wales,
Young violets lift their heads, and up and
down "
The sweet arbutus trails.
"Along the river banks,
Scarce green as yet, and strewn with loose,
gray sands,
The adder tongues in sharp and mottled ran ks
Break through their earthly banas."
And although winters wan, white
bearded ghost hovers restlessly upon
the confines of spring, and will not
down at her gentle behest, we are reas-
sured by the promise that comes to us
through the disrobed woods, for though
"Leafy thickness is not yet
Earth's naked breast TO screen,
Each sturdy dripping branch is set
With shoots of tender green"
How difficult to realize, as we con-
template the near approach of the
springs festivities and pleasures, to be
so closely followed by the dreamy de-
lights of early summer, that since last
we gathered together with our we'll
laden baskets and made merry in the
sweet green woods, the swift-revolving
cycles have added another year, with all
its record of good and ill, to the centu-
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