River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1886-04-29
APRIL.

Many city people imagine there Is
nothing to be seen in the country be.
fore June. "God offers us yearly a
necklace of twelve pearls; most men
choose the fairest, label it June, and
cast the rest away" Yet April has
always been loved by the English
poets, beginning with Chaucer-
"When that Aprille with his schowres
swOote
The draught of Marche hath perced to the
roOte."
Shakespeare often celebrates this
month of his birth and death, and
sings
"When proud-pied April, dressed in all his
trim,
Hath put a spirit of youth in everything,
That heavy Saturn laughed and leaped
with him."
And Tennyson asks, "Can trouble
dwell with April days?' The English
artist, Constable, was very fond of this
early spring season, and Hamerton
writes: ''No weather is, to my feeling.
so delightful as this genuine April
weather" An English April, however,
nearly corresponds to our May. Even
the city puts on holiday aspect when
April comes, and bright sunshine, joy
Gus FACES, and flower stands, full of
roses and violets, make its streets gay.
A true spring implies winter, and
could not exist in all its beauty in a
latitude much south of the Middle
States. The real April should have
snow-covered mountains; is a kind of
Alpine summer. ThOreau was able to
detect signs of spring as early as Feb
ruary, but flowers do not often come
before April, and they are character
istic of the month. The trees and
shrubs blossom earliest On the first
warm day the alder catkins by the
water-cOurses begin to swell and de-
velOp into graceful sprays; later come
the delicate birch blossoms and the
dear ''pussy-willows." As in October,
so in April, the scarlet maple is the
most brilliant color of the forest.
The first wild flowers are the trailing
arbutus and the hepatica. Without
doubt the former is the favorite spring
flower, and even country people seek
for it with singular delight. The
hepatica "opens its blue eyes almost
as soon as it leaves the ground, while
the arbutds has buds all winter. Al
though we are behind the English
spring, anemones, viOletS, bloOd-root,
and about fifteen other flowers come in
our April. The spring flowers have
few leaves of their own. but with the
wOolly little ferns Just unrOlling, the
horsetails and the sprays of raspberry,
nature has furnished ample green for
her April nosegay.
Migrating birds come back to their
summer home in New Ems land earlier
than in the mother country, and the
April birds include the robin, bluebrd,
meadow-lark, sOng-sparrow, blackbird,
and woodpecker, The warm DAYS
bring out woodchucks, turtles, aud
snakes; the shad come up the river, an
nOunced by the song of the shad-spirit.
and the snowy CLEAN of the shad-blow
among the lestless woods, beetles and
caddice-fies appear in the water, the
tritop's spawn is found in wayside
pools, and the shrill music of the frog
sounds through the misty twilight.
In April 1.-The world is removed by
water, as in the description by Thales
of the creation. and it is not hard to
believe, as the venerable Bede tells us
that the world was born on a certain
Sunday falling on the eighth of this
birth month of the year.
As only an artist can see the full
beauty OF an April sky, it surely takes
aphilosopher to appreciate April wealth
err But when a certain stoicism has
been attained bv repeating