The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1881-04-20
THE PRESS.
Worcester Spy.1
Spring.


We are panied to observe disposition on the
part Of the public to bs dissatisfied with the
weather. and even to suggest that an outraged
people may rise in their wrath and wreak ter
rible vengeance upon that excellent and &C
complished officer, General Hazen, who distri-
outes to us daily such weather as he has in
store. We regret this because, after all, New
England people have been treated compare
lively we'll We have not been drowned as
orr fellow countrymen in Nebraska and Dako-
ia have been, nor frozen like the people of
Minnesota aud Montana. nor crushed to death
by earthquakes like the unfortunate Greeks of
Chic. Nor has the promise of our fruit crop
for the coming season been destroyed as some
people say that of New Jersey and Maryland
has been. We have simply had succession
of cold storms of snow, sleet and rain, with
harsh, biting winds, with scarcely any of those
bland. genial days which are, with grim sar-
casm, called "spring-like, because they are so
strong contrast to the usual spring weather.
There is something uuaccountable in the delu-
sion which we imbibe in our infancy, perhaps
from traditions of moro genial climate en-
1oyed by our remote ancestors before they mi
grated to these shores, and which we never
wholly outgrow, that spring is mild and Sc
ductive season. No one can recall any spring
time which at all corresponds to the poetic
conception which VIC all cherish, but we cling
with pathetic tenacity to the hope that each
yernal season will be different from any which
have preceded it, and the bitterness of dsap-
pointment is not in the least diminished by its
yearly renewal. In fact, spring in New En-
gland is the most repulsiye, ungena, harsh
and Grabbed of all the seasons. The cold does
not bite with the same keenness as in January
but the damp, raw air chills to the bone and
has none of the brisk exhilarating quality
which attends frosty day in autumn or the
singing severity of a winter morning with
the mercury below zero. The spring weather
causes and aggrevates all those diseases of the
lungs and respiratory organs which are SO
prevalent in New England. Everybody knows
1T, yet many people afflicted or threatened with
,hose diseases go every year to Florida in the
latter part OF the winter and return in April,
at the precise time when spring puts on its
most malignant and fatal aspect. As they 90
about after their return wheeling and snuffing
with their Threats bound up in flannel they
moar over the abnormal lateness of the season
and ask in querulous tones why spring so long
delays. Their feeble wonder proves how much
stronger is cherished superstition than the
evidence of memory and experience. Spring
is here in her familiar garb and aspect yet
they know her not.
In spite of all experience they expect to see
the mythical spring of the poets, buxom
sweet-voiced maiden with laughing eyes, dis
hevelled hair and lightly flowing raiment, her
head covered with flowers, and her breath fra
grant with the perfume of blossoming orchards
1t is possible that she may sometime have been
seen In this pleasant disguise by peculiarly
favored observer, but in her yearly visits to
New England, she comes in her own true
character, harsh visaged shrew, with str-
dent voice, an icicle depending from her pur-
pie nose, and snow wreaths lodged in the folds
OF her draggled skirts. Her tread has the dull
sad sound OF clumsy overShoe sinking in
mud and siush; for ornament she wears fan
mel round her throat; her temper is alternately
fierce and lachrymose; her songs are the shriil
screams OF an angry vixen, and her breath is
charged with pneumania, catarrh and infuen-
"a.
This is the spring of New England in form.
feature and disposition as she is familiar to us
all. No one could fail to recognize her any,
where. We should not expect to meet her in
Florida or Egypt, but if the nomadic Yankee,
journeying in those lands should encounter a
day with harsh, leaden skies, chilling wind
and turries of snow and seet, his heart would
warm 10 it as to an old acquaintance unex-
Pectedly met, and he would say impulsively
and truly, BLESS me! this is real New En-
gland May day." In the character of the old
est inhabitant, which we may without undue
presumption take upon ourselves, we solemnly
reaffirm the truth of the above description, not
Q. this spring only, which, unlovely
long series We have observed, but of
Spring in general. That we may not even now
too hastily assume that she has exhausted her
caprices for this year, and that we may depend
upon steady improvement in her temper and
manners, we recall a few of her excuses in
former years. May Sth, 1903, snow fell to the
depth of six inches. In 1882 the ground was
covered with snow on the 25th of the same
month. In 1884 snow fell to the depth Of an
inch or more on the 18th of May, and ice
formed half an inch thick. On the 7th of May
1865, snow fell to about the depth of six inches.
These observations were all made in Worces-
ter, and of snow falls between the middle and
last OF April we could recall very many. 1t is
true that among our early recollections is that
nineteenth of April, 1775, when the militia
mustered at Lexington and Concord to meet
the kings troops, who marched out from Bos-
ton, when the grass was high enough to wave
IN the wind, and some of the baff1ed invaders
were overcome by heat as well as fatigue on
their retreat, but we remember, too, the 10Th
OF April century later, when the hardy sons
OF heroic sires mustered on the same fields, en-
countering greater dangers and suffering heay-
Ter losses from the chilling breath of Spring
than their fathers did from the weapons Of the
enemy. " = -