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The first tree he came to was a slim silver birch. "Beautiful birch-tree," he said, "will you let me live in your warm branches until the springtime comes?" "Dear me!" said the birch-tree, "what a thing to ask! I have to take care of my own leaves through the winter; that is enough for me. Go away." The little bird hopped and fluttered with his broken wing until he came to the next tree.
Youth in such a Utopia is a very springtime of hope: adult life a busy and cheery activity: and age itself, watching from its shady bench beneath a spreading tree the labors of its children, is but a gentle retrospect from which material care has passed away. It is a picture beautiful as the opalescent colors of a soap bubble.
Then came the benediction, and a cheery "I wish you all a happy New Year, my friends," from Mr. Spurgeon. A great shout of "The same to you!" arose in response from basement and galleries, and the congregation passed out into a morning so soft, and light, and mild, that it seemed as if the seasons were out of joint, and that the New Year had been born in the springtime.
The singing, the merry voices calling, the comfortable lowing of the kine, the bleating of the sheep, the clinking of the bridle-chains, and the heavy ruttle of the carts filled the air with life and cheer. The wind was blowing both warm and cool; and, oh, the blithe breeze of the English springtime!
It was not long before they encountered the roses and carnations growing on every side, which the Major had persistently declared to be mythical. "It seems all wrong," asserted Patsy's father, moodily, "for such delicate flowers to be growing out of doors in midwinter. And look at the grass! Why, the seasons are changed about. It's Springtime just now in California."
Here the reference is not to the individual reality, the fixed identity, the specialized being of that other rose, rather doth it mean that the qualities, the distinctive characteristics of that other light, that other flower, are present now, in these. Those perfections, that is, those graces and gifts of a former springtime are back again this year.
"Besides," declared Dick thoughtfully, "every time there was a thaw or a big rain the cave you're talking about making would be nothing but a big cistern, half-full of water. But we could dig and fit up such a cave somewhere in the woods in springtime, fellows."
Perhaps the coming springtime ... perhaps another happiness that was stealing toward her, nameless and unrecognized. Samuel Chapdelaine and Maria were to dine with their relative Azalma Larouche, at whose house they had spent the night. No one was there but the hostess, for many years a widow, and old Nazaire Larouche, her brother-in-law.
For a brief space they stood quite still, and at once, accentuated by their own silence, the noises of the night grew in number and distinctness. A slight wind had risen and the boughs of the pines rocked restlessly, making mournful complaint; and at their feet the needles dropping in a gentle desultory shower had the sound of rain in springtime.
"When you are thinking they get as big as saucers. What are you thinking about now?" "I can't help thinking about what it will look like," he answered. "The garden?" asked Mary. "The springtime," he said. "I was thinking that I've really never seen it before. I scarcely ever went out and when I did go I never looked at it. I didn't even think about it."
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