n of winter is cold, and it comes in bitter scuds that blind you;
but the rain of April steals upon you coyly, half reluctantly,--yet
lovingly--like the steps of a bride to the Altar.

It does not gather like the storm-clouds of winter, gray and heavy along
the horizon, and creep with subtle and insensible approaches (like age)
to the very zenith; but there are a score of white-winged swimmers
afloat, that your eye has chased as you lay fatigued with the delicious
languor of an April sun;--nor have you scarce noticed that a little bevy
of those floating clouds had grouped together in a sombre company. But
presently you see across the fields the dark gray streaks, stretching
like lines of mists from the green bosom of the valley to that spot of
sky where the company of clouds is loitering; and with an easy shifting
of the helm the fleet of swimmers come drifting over you, and drop their
burden into the dancing pools, and make the flowers glisten, and the
eaves drip with their crystal bounty.

The cattle linger still, cropping the new-come grass; and childhood
laughs joyously at the warm rain, or under the cottage-roof catches with
eager ear the patter of its fall.

----And with that patter on the roof,--so like to the patter of
childish feet,--my story of boyish dreams shall begin.

I.

_Rain in the Garret._

It is an old garret with big brown rafters; and the boards between are
stained darkly with the rain-storms of fifty years. And as the sportive
April shower quickens its flood, it seems as if its torrents would come
dashing through the shingles upon you, and upon your play. But it will
not; for you know that the old roof is strong, and that it has kept you,
and all that love you, for long years from the rain and from the cold;
you know that the hardest storms of winter will only make a little
oozing leak, that trickles down the brown stains--like tears.

You love that old garret-roof; and you nestle down under its slope with
a sense of its protecting power that no castle-walls can give to your
maturer years. Aye, your heart clings in boyhood to the roof-tree of the
old family garret with a grateful affection and an earnest confidence,
that the after-years--whatever may be their successes, or their
honors--can never re-create. Under the roof-tree of his home the boy
feels SAFE: and where in the whole realm of life, with its
bitter toils and its bitterer temptations, will he feel _safe_ again?

But thi