In praise of the warm weather and approach of spring, this week the editors looked back to Henry Beetle Hough and two of his essays on the coming season.

March Omens

If a Vineyarder should be confined in a dark room with the windows closed and the shades drawn, he would still know that it was March. On this Island one need not pursue nature with a net or put on fancy dress and invade the countryside to find out how it looks and feels. The imprint of the day and all its natural doings is struck firmly and clearly upon every perceptive spirit. Just now there is a March sound somewhere in the far-off sky, and the ground — though it is still sodden — has drawn a breath.

Lying abed in the first light of morning, one has the news of the day in the gossip of a starling perched on a neighboring tree or wire; and the bird’s whistle, as well as the feeling of the early air, records the time of year. The starling has whistled before, but not with the accent of March. The rain has fine differences of character; it is not sweet yet, as it will be a month from now, but it has lost the wintry deadness and comes driving on the wind with a slight inflection of encouragement. Then there is the color of the sky and sea delicately altered as the page of the natural program is turned.

It would be profitable for the Vineyard if March were as intelligible in the cities, for hundreds of city dwellers would feel a stir within themselves and come hastening to the Island to survey the scene in preparation for another spring and summer. But the cities muffle all gentler suggestions and whispers of the elements, or do not go out to meet them; they have to wait for a clarion call to wake them to awareness of what is going on.

Robin and Redwing

Two robins in a tree, then one flying low across the lawn with a characteristic call, as if to say that the robin may retreat but nevertheless retains possession, that he flies low on purpose because it is his lawn, and from now until sometime deep in summer he will not be far away. Then, besides the robins, a redwinged blackbird in the same wild cherry he so much liked all last summer. If this is not spring, what is it, no matter how much snow may still fly and how chill the winds may seem?

All nature is stirred, as if the robin or the redwing did it. One begins to look closely and sees not only the snowdrops in pure white flower against brown grass but budding tulips and daffodils and swelling buds on shrubs. Grass is green already in favored places.

What is it that makes the air smell and taste so different? We do not know, unless it is spring. Even when the winds are biting, the new scent is present, and one wonders if the robin and the redwing have noticed it and if that is why they are here. The longer hours of daylight seem less important than the smell and feeling of the air, for days lengthen with plodding slowness but the air brings its fresh tang suddenly, with excitement and quickening.

The business of peace is being carried on in this war-worried world by such welcome citizens as returning robins, and the more one notices them the better. Except for them there would be no spring, and spring we still must have.