McCook weekly tribune. (McCook, Neb.) 188?-1886, 1884-03-27

conditions upon which the land may be
obtained will secure a fine class of set
tlers-those who intend to make per-
manent residences there.
How Shall We Meet the Spring?
Harper's Magazine for April.
How shall we meet the spring? This
would be an easier question to answer
if we knew how spring in this latitude
would meet us-whether half way, or,
indeed at all. For in this matter we
are not guided by experience. Hope
springs eternal in the northern breast.
And we allow ourselves to be deceived
by many artificial conditions we have
created. We get seventy and eighty
degrees Fahrenheit by telegraph, and
fancy we are. warmed. We eat green
pease and strawberries and the shad
out of season and fancy that we have
changed the course of nature. Lulled
into negligence by these appearances,
man leaves off his overcoat, and next
day sends for the doctor. The doctor,
who has all seasons TOR his own, re-
CARDS spring as his harvest time. He
saves more lives then than in any other
season. And lives are worth saving
then, for the man who lives through
spring is likely to be good patient all
the year. There never was notion so
without foundation as this, that doctors
don't want patients all the year. This
faith in spring is beautiful trait in
human nature. We always expect that
this spring will be early and will be
mild, and fifty years of disappointment
do not sour us. If the winter is hard
and heavy, we say that is sign of an
early spring; if it is open and tolera-
BILE, we know that we shall have an
open spring. More than this, our
memory is colored like our hope, and
as we 60 on in years we say that in onr
youth spring was early, mild and
jocund. No trout rise SO readily and
are so gamy as the trout of our youth
except the trout we expect to throw u
fly to this spring. This is the nature
of man. No wonder that the Psalmist
exclaimed, "What is man that Thou
art mindful of him?''
How shall we meet the spring? We
have stood long siege. from Novem-
Der to April. A part of the garrison
have been "braced up" by it, as they
call it; others are weary and worn out,
and would have surrendered long ago
if a flag of truce had appeared. Their
energies are exhausted, and just when
they need tonic there comes upon
them at leap the facilitating heat of
summer. This is, however, only one
way of looking at it. More subtle in
fuences are at work. The plants, the
trees, have had as hard time as we
have; some of them are dead. But
those that survive, as soon as they feel
the coaxing sun and the increasing
warmth in the soil, begin to get up
their circulation, to quicken the pulse
of their sap, and to bourgeon into the
most exquisite life. We are much like |
them. .Grumble as we will, we, too,
feel to the core of our being the thrill
Of life newly beginning, and we are
born again. This is delicious feeling,
this tender sympathy in the renaissance
about the voice of the frog, and the
first flush of pink and green on the
trees, and the south wind. For some
days everybody, however old, is posi-
BILE lover, and for some days everybody
is poet. He experiences sensation |
that the poets never have fully ex-
pressed, and that he cannot put into |
or even into music.
The song of bird swinging on spray
of apple blossoms comes nearest to
expressing his emotion. It may not |
last long, but while it does last it is like
a taste of paradise. This is one of the
of our climate. The
people in the tropics know nothing of
this sensation. They are not born
again annually; know nothing of the
JOY in contrast and change. Conse-
quently they produce no poetry, no lit
erature they invent nothing they make
no ''progress. And they are not I'M
happy.
We should 60 forth in the spring, as
the poet says, with light heart. We
have had long rest from the innumer-
able insects, from the busy fly and the
worm. We shall 90 forth to
sow, and to fight all these enemies with
new courage. Science is on our side
to name all these destroyers of our Ia
bors and our peace, and to describe
their habits. We feel a consciousness
of superiority in this knowledge. There
is an excitement in taking up again the
life arrested for so many months. There
is perennial charm in the colored
Easter eggs, although we know by ex-
perience that they will not all hatch.
1t does not matter Hope is thou
sand times better than fruition. In the
spring everybody requests his mother
to wake and call him early.
Plenty of Hone for the Freely Partv.