The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1883-04-07
HARBINGERs OF SPRING.

To the Editor of the Indianapolis Journal:
o come, then, quickly comet
We are budding, we are blowing;
And the wind that we perfume
Sings tune that's worth the knowing.
is the song Emerson makes the poor New
England flowers" sing Ito Ellen at the
South.'
Few of the tiny sect of shakers" have yet
appeared in Central Indiana. The naples
and elms have blossomed, but they are not
spring fowers-except to the botanists who
love not the flower they pluck, and know
it not; and all their botany is Latin Names"
Bloodroot, anemone, erigenia and the rest of
the late March and early April flowers are
only in bud. The April of the almanac does
not lap evenly over the vast geography of
the United States. The April zone is as well
defined in Indiana as the strawberry belt,
and requires from three to four weeks to
sweep across the State from the Ohio to the
Michigan woods. But it has its signs,
and the wood-wise know them.
When you see green grass in the
spring creeks, and the frogs come out,
when the boys snare suckers in the creek
pools when the wheat and rye fields look
green between the gray, plowed fields when
robins forsake the deep woods for dooryards
light load OF song from post to post along
the cherries fence" when the wind shifts
from the northern and eastern ways to west
and south, when farmers wives make soap,
set hens and burn garden rubbsh-then,
never mind the calendar, but write it down
April.
This intermediate belt of advancing color
and new life following the climbing sun,
turning out not only for u mountain range
but even delaying its course for Weed-patch
HILL in Brown county, darting its welcome
couriers, in robes of green and gold, up every
warm valley and southern slope, disputing
with March and coquetting with May, by
turns-is coming-is coming.
1t is already at the foot of the old-time In
diana glacier whose moraines and gray
clays and gravels have said for a time, Halt!
Beyond the beech and bowlder regions south
county, among the red clays and
sassafras-covered and barren hills of Monroe
and Brown counties, where the main crops
are underground-geodes and limestone,
with half-dollar-a-day sprlnkling of gold
dust and weak salt springs-there, on Sun
day. April l. by the calendar of Pope Greg
DRY, met the heralds of the advancing host.
The south wind came up the valley and
into the gorge of Blumet's creek and OF Bean
Blossom.
"'Twas the tune of the spring,
Every year plays 1t over,
To the robin on the wing,
And to the pausing lover"
For one bright moment there was CLEAN
of sunshine, and the spirit of April stood
athwart the messy hills and purplish woods,
suggesting to the mind Longfeliows Poets
Calendar:
az open wide the portals of the spring
To welcome the procession OF the flowers,
With their gay banners, ana the birds that sing
Their song or songs from their aerial towers
"I soften with my sunshine and my showers
ia he nj nur wit hnn pnf nf Iowa
1 glide into the hearts OF men, and with the
hours
Upon the bull with wreathed horns ride"
On the afternoon of April 2, 1 stood with
my companion by the foot of hill as rich
with moses, lichens and lverworts as
you can find in New England; there was the
drumming OF the partridge and no other
sound; there among the leaves and moss
were the buds of the trailing arbutus, Just
bursting into blossom, the partridge berry,
the evergreen and white blotched leaves of
the princes pine and others loved of the
naturalist peculiar by their rarity beauty or
locality. The senses blunted by the cold and
monotony and indoor life of a tedious win
ter lingering in the lap of spring, become
anhungered for these delicate and almost
ETHEREAL tokens of the wealth of later April.
On the limestone bluffs of Rocky Branch
just out of Bloomington, we found in full
blossom what might we'll be known as the
American crocus; it comes before the swal-
low dares" bursting from its snug bulb
among the cefts of the rocks, and standing
out white as the March snow flying about it,
But it is not crocus; it is better than that;
it is the earliest OF the white wake robins; it
is the snow trillium, trillium nivale of the
books. Its white three petaled salver is an inch
across. surmounting as many green leaves;
it is the most Striking flower of early
spring and known by but few and in but
few places. To its secluded rock my COM
panion led me, for he was as generous as
Thoreau, and like him would take you to
his most priced botanical swamp or to his
favorite fish-pond full of new Species" will
ing to take the risk OF your ever finding it
again. Together we had climbed loftier
mounts than the bluffs of Bean Blossom
creek and assembled fairer rivers, but still he
was my muse my brother" He was
"a lover true, who knew by heart
Each joy the mountain dales impart:
1t seemed that Nature could not raise
A plant in any secret place
But he would come the very hour
1t opened in its virgin bower"
And so we hunted and found April among
the hills and valleys of Bloomington. There
is no more inviting country for a literary
or scientific school-attractiye alike to the
artist, the naturalist and to those wishing Sc
clusion from the chaff and foam of the pres
ent, that they may live with the great minds
of the past.
We left the red hills with the sassafras, the
catalpa, the sweet gum and red cedar-the
bright goodies full of crystals-and the spark
ling streams tumbling over the mountain
limestone, satisfied that If April will not
come TO you, you can at least go to her.
A. w. BRAyToN.