Page:Early Spring in Massachusetts (1881).djvu/44

30 the ripening corn let's have a second or third crop of peas and turnips, decking the fields in a new green. So amid clumps of sere herd's-grass sometimes flower the violet and buttercups, spring-born.

March 1, 1842. Whatever I learn from any circumstance, that especially I needed to know. Events come out of God, and our characters determine them and constrain fate as much as they determine the words and tone of a friend to us. Hence are they always acceptable in experience, and we do not see how we could have done without them.

March 1, 1854. Here is our first spring morning according to the almanac. It is remarkable that the spring of the almanac and of nature should correspond so closely. The morning of the 26th ult. was good winter; but then came a plentiful rain in the afternoon, and yesterday and to-day are quite spring-like. This morning the air is still, and though clear enough, a yellowish light is widely diffused through the east now just after sunrise. The sunlight looks and feels warm, and a fine vapor fills the lower atmosphere. I hear the "phebe" or spring note of the chickadee, and the scream of the jay is perfectly repeated by the echo from a neighboring wood. For some days past the surface of the earth, covered with