From Singing in the Morning, a collection of short stories by Henry Beetle Hough.

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 stuck 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 feeding 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.