their little combs and
dry them, as they ought to do; but shrivelled at the base and fell, as
if a knife had cut them. And more than all to notice was (at least about
the hedges) the shuddering of everything and the shivering sound among
them toward the feeble sun; such as we make to a poor fireplace when
several doors are open. Sometimes I put my face to warm against the
soft, rough maple-stem, which feels like the foot of a red deer; but the
pitiless east wind came through all, and took and shook the caved
hedge aback till its knees were knocking together, and nothing could
be shelter. Then would any one having blood, and trying to keep at home
with it, run to a sturdy tree and hope to eat his food behind it, and
look for a little sun to come and warm his feet in the shelter. And if
it did he might strike his breast, and try to think he was warmer.

But when a man came home at night, after long day's labour, knowing
that the days increased, and so his care should multiply; still he found
enough of light to show him what the day had done against him in
his garden. Every ridge of new-turned earth looked like an old man's
muscles, honeycombed, and standing out void of spring, and powdery.
Every plant that had rejoiced in passing such a winter now was cowering,
turned away, unfit to meet the consequence. Flowing sap had stopped its
course; fluted lines showed want of food, and if you pinched the topmost
spray, there was no rebound or firmness.

We think a good deal, in a quiet way, when people ask us about them--of
some fine, upstanding pear-trees, grafted by my grandfather, who had
been very greatly respected. And he got those grafts by sheltering a
poor Italian soldier, in the time of James the First, a man who never
could do enough to show his grateful memories. How he came to our place
is a very difficult story, which I never understood rightly, having
heard it from my mother. At any rate, there the pear-trees were, and
there they are to this very day; and I wish every one could taste their
fruit, old as they are, and rugged.

Now these fine trees had taken advantage of the west winds, and the
moisture, and the promise of the spring time, so as to fill the tips of
the spray-wood and the rowels all up the branches with a crowd of eager
blossom. Not that they were yet in bloom, nor even showing whiteness,
only that some of the cones were opening at the side of the cap which
pinched them; and there you might count perh