SPRING, AT LAST

Spring was supposed to come in like a lion and go out like a lamb, but it didn’t always happen just that way. Jenny decided that March was her least favorite month, as all were tired of winter by then, but there could still be snowy days , and there were often chilly or strong dust- filled winds. There would be kites to color at school and also bright tulips to cut out and glue or color so they could make showy borders in the classroom. She had never owned a kite, and tulips would not grow in their dry unfenced chicken- scratched yard at home, but she liked the idea and the look of both.

On St. Patrick’s Day, March 17, everyone wore green at school to show their Irish, and to keep from getting pinched. After her family got a radio, Jenny was able to enjoy the haunting Irish airs that were sung, or the danceable Irish tunes that were played. Comedians were sure to have Irish jokes. Daddy’s grandparents had left Ireland during the potato famine, and his speech was heavily laced with Irish expressions. If possible, potatoes were planted on St. Patrick’s Day. A few days before planting, Jenny would help cut the seed potatoes into sections, so that there was an eye in each. Her hands would get dirty and sore. The potatoes would be spread out to dry, so that they would not rot in the ground. Daddy would hitch up the big work horses, Frank and Barney, and work the earth in the large potato patch way out east of the house. Before Jenny was old enough to go to school, she would help Mother plant the potatoes. Mother would make the hills on top of the rows and they would drop several in each hill. The newly turned earth was moist and black and smelled so good.

The arrival of spring on March 21 would be the day to see who could be the first so see signs of spring. It might be a snake, a beetle, a swarm of gnats, a meadow lark singing, the buffalo grass greening in spots, some wild flowers blooming, the thawing of the winter snows. It it were a warm day, people felt a delicious laziness and said they had “spring fever.” Sometimes it would still be cold, with snow still covering the ground, Then spring would be anticipated even more. Mother and Daddy would look through seed catalogues, with beautiful colored vegetables, fruit and flowers and talk about what they would plant in the garden this year. Sheep shire grew in the school yard, and some of the older school children showed how to recognize them and pull them up to chew on the tender pink roots. Jenny liked the acidic taste of them. Mother said they might be poisonous or she might get worms, but Jenny ate them anyhow. They hadn’t bothered the kids who knew about them.

Spring also brought Easter. Some years it was in March and some years in April. Just before Easter, the new spring hats would arrive at Agnes Morris’ hat store, and it was time for Mother to get a new one. Hat styles changed every year, and even in hard times, it just wouldn’t do to wear last year’s hat, which would be put way back on the closet shelf, used only for plays and dress-up boxes. Mother would try on many different hats before she could decide. She didn’t usually get hats for Margaret and Jenny because the wind had a way of blowing them off little girl’s heads, but the year Jenny was eight, the hat store had some poke-shaped bonnets for little girls that Mother couldn’t resist getting for them. They framed their faces and kept off the sun and fastened under the chin with a wooden bead on a grosgrained ribbon, Margaret’s was red and Jenny’s was blue and they were made of straw, as most spring hats were. Agnes said they made their faces look sweeter than ever. Mother said Agnes knew about hats and she trusted her judgment. Most women wore hats whenever they went anywhere.

At school they would decorate the schoolhouse walls and windows with brightly colored cut outs of Easter eggs, rabbits, yellow baby chicks and ducklings.

On Easter morning at home, Mother or Daddy would say, “Do you suppose the Easter rabbit came last night?” They would hunt in the yard until they each found a pan of brightly dyed eggs. Jenny found hers in the trailer, and Margaret found hers in the wagon. Jenny imagined that the Easter rabbit must be a very large white rabbit that walked upright on his two hind feet. Otherwise, how could he carry so many eggs? Of course, he had helpers. They never ate their Easter eggs, but would keep them around just to look at until the middle of summer when they began to stink, if dropped or cracked, and they would have to throw them away. One year the Easter rabbit brought chocolate covered marshmallow eggs wrapped in pretty tinfoil with pink yellow and white icing flowers aop the chocolate He didn’t leave them outside, but on the little white table in the kitchen.

When she was older, Easter became more of a religious holiday and she learned about the crucifixion and the resurrection and such things. On the year she was ten, she and Margaret became members of the Presbyterian Church. Mother and Daddy went to this ceremony on Easter morning. All new Church members were issued envelopes for weekly tithing.

April first was April Fool’s Day and it was fun to be first in the family or at school to fool someone. If they knew you were trying to fool them, they would say, “Ha, ha. April Fool yourself.” You had to make it sound so convincing they would forget about it being April Fool’s Day.

“April showers bring May flowers,” people would say. At school there would be umbrella pictures. Jenny liked the pretty shape and colors and wished she had an umbrella, but the only thing close to that on the farm was the large black parasol fastened to the Farmall tractor as shade from the blistering sun.

Other important April events would be the blooming of the flowers on the wild bushes. First there were the currant bushes, which grew in a number of places along fences and outbuildings around the big yard. The blooms were bright yellow and gave off a delicate fragrance, a nostalgic fragrance that was to haunt Jenny forever. Nor could anyone forget the stronger fragrance of the wild plum thickets by the roadside, a fragrance which filled the air for miles, it seemed. Other eagerly anticipated events were the hatching of the baby chicks, the wonderful last day of school picnic, which lasted from morning until evening, the last day PTA program and the start of a glorious four month summer vacation.

May was the month of more flowers, Mother’s Day, birthdays and Decoration Day. Jenny had heard that children in town took tiny paper cones of flowers called May baskets and left them at their friends’ doors, and that sometimes older children would wind the Maypole. Mother’s Day would sometimes be observed with covered dish dinners on Daddy’s side of the family, to honor his mother, who seemed very old and wrinkled and always dressed in brown. Jenny’s birthday was May 29 and on the year she was six, she had a big birthday party. Mother always baked a birthday cake for her and there would be a small gift from the family. The next day, May 30 would be Decoration Day. and they would go to the cemetery and decorate the graves of Mother’s parents
who had died way before Margaret was born. Margaret and Jenny would cut the sweet smelling yellow bushes that grew on the big thorny bush that had been in the yard forever, and always bloomed for Decoration Day, and they would pick the pink wild roses. They looked modest on the graves compared to those large showy ones from the floral shops, but Mother said it was the remembering that was important. Everyone dressed in their best summer clothing and white shoes. There would be a band, a service to remember all those who had died in wars and otherwise, solemn speeches, a firing squad made up of members of the American Legion. Daddy was a member of the American Legion and always proud to serve on the firing squad. A trumpeter would play, “Taps,” then another trumpeter, still further away would play an echoing “Taps.” Mother’s birthday was on the next day, May 31--this was why she had been named Mae. She would make strawberry shortcake for her birthday to go with the lovely fresh strawberries that were in season , as this was her favorite. When Jenny became old enough to save a few pennies, she would buy Mother presents for Mother’s Day and her birthday.