ebruary or the middle of March, we wake with
the old recognizable nostalgia. It is the last polyp or vestige of our
anthropomorphic and primal self, trailing its pathetic little wisp of
glory for the one day of the whole calendar. All the rest of the year we
are the plodding percheron of commerce, patiently tugging our wain; but
on that morning there wambles back, for the nonce, the pang of Eden. We
wake at 6 o'clock; it is a blue and golden morning and we feel it
imperative to get outdoors as quickly as possible. Not for an instant do
we feel the customary respectable and sanctioned desire to kiss the
sheets yet an hour or so. The traipsing, trolloping humor of spring is
in our veins; we feel that we must be about felling an aurochs or a
narwhal for breakfast. We leap into our clothes and hurry downstairs and
out of the front door and skirmish round the house to see and smell and
feel.

It is spring. It is unmistakably spring, because the pewit bushes are
budding and on yonder aspen we can hear a forsythia bursting into song.
It is spring, when the feet of the floorwalker pain him and smoking-car
windows have to be pried open with chisels. We skip lightheartedly round
the house to see if those bobolink bulbs we planted are showing any
signs yet, and discover the whisk brush that fell out of the window last
November. And then the newsboy comes along the street and sees us
prancing about and we feel sheepish and ashamed and hurry indoors again.

There may still be blizzards and frozen plumbings and tumbles on icy
pavements, but when that morning of annunciation has come to us we know
that winter is truly dead, even though his ghost may walk and gibber
once or twice. The sweet urge of the new season has rippled up through
the oceanic depths of our subconsciousness, and we are aware of the
rising tide. Like Mr. Wordsworth we feel that we are wiser than we know.
(Perhaps we have misquoted that, but let it stand.)

There are other troubles that spring brings us. We are pitifully
ashamed of our ignorance Of nature, and though we try to hide it we keep
getting tripped up. About this time of year inquisitive persons are
always asking us: "Have you heard any song sparrows yet?" or "Are there
any robins out your way?" or "When do the laburnums begin to nest out in
Marathon?" Now we really can't tell these people our true feeling, which
is that we do not believe in peeking in on the privacy of the laburnums
or any other songster