All Weather is Good Weather, as published in Home Magazine, (March, 1934)

Transcription

"All Weather is Good Weather"

I believe that we talk more about the weather in March than in any other month. We take for granted April with showers, Summer with its heat and drought, Winter with its frost and snow, but with March it is different.

March is the beginning of Spring. We know, of course, that the meteorologist says Spring begins the 21st, but we prefer to disregard that fact and believe that we already sense Spring riding upon the wings of the March wind. We have a premonition of little creatures stirring in the stone walls, and we pretend not to see Winter just peeping round the hedge with a gray cloud in his hair and frosty malice in his eye. We give all our attention to the brave little crocuses pushing out from under his icy feet.

There are many other evidences that Spring has come with March. The rooks have already courted with their mates, and are building nests in ash, elm and sycamore - a sign that never fails. Then there are March hares whirling and hissing at each other in the rivalry of love-making. If any creature knows that Spring is here, it should be the March hare.

What of it if Winter has another snow-storm or two up his sleeve? I take my staff and fare forth to greet Spring with three dogs at my heels. They are not very old, but they know just as well as I do that Spring has come. What adorable companions dogs are when one goes out to trail the footsteps of Spring! They are the first to smell the sweet new grasses and the willow catkins. Every little bud and curled-up leaf causes my heart to jump with gladness; for know Spring is sure and certain.

True, the north winds and the east winds come howling down from the hills, spin me round and nearly throw me off my feet. I go back to the fire a little crestfallen, only to be called out again by the first warm sunbeam that touches the book outspread on my knee. The big, white-headed mountains laugh at me and bid me go back to the fireside; for Spring in March is a delusion, a fairy dream of poets. Still my heart sings persistently; for the keen winds drop fragrant whiffs upon pasture and moor. I may go to sleep in what seems midwinter, but I am sure I shall wake to catch new scents from the woods blown by a kindly west wind.

This experience of waiting, believing and anticipating each day of March as a possible messenger of Spring teaches me this: All weather is good weather. Really there is not bad weather. Bad weather is a superstition created by people who do not like variety in their weather.

We shall be happier if we learn to like more than one kind of weather. We shall then find all weathers of the year good weather. If we get up in the morning and, looking out of the window, find the day pale gray, cold and rainy, we shall think of the lovely new flowers for which it is preparing the way; and the thought should make us more charitable, more kindly not only for that day, but to all that the day brings forth.