Were we talking of the seasons?  Very well, dearie, the seasons it shall be.  They are all charming, but if I were to wed any it would be Spring.  How well I remember the gentle perfume of her comings, and her warm, languid breath!

There was a time when I would go out of the house some morning, and the snow would be melting, and Spring would kiss my cheek, and then I would be all aglow with joy and would burst into the house, and cry:  “Spring is here!  Spring is here!” For you know we always have to divide our joy with some one.  One can bear grief, but it takes two to be glad.

And then my mother would smile and say, “Yes, my son, but do not wake the baby!”

Then I would go out and watch the snow turn to water, and run down the road in little rivulets to the creek, that would swell until it became a regular Mississippi, so that when we waded the horse across, the water would come to the saddlegirth.

Then once, I remember, the bridge was washed away, and all the teams had to go around and through the water, and some used to get stuck in the mud on the other bank.  It was great fun!

The first “Spring beauties” bloomed very early in that year; violets came out on the south side of rotting logs, and cowslips blossomed in the slough as they never had done before.  Over on the knoll, prairie-chickens strutted pompously and proudly drummed.  The war was over!  Lincoln had won, and the country was safe!

The jubilee was infectious, and the neighbors who used to come and visit us would tell of the men and boys who would soon be back.  The war was over!

My father and mother talked of it across the table, and the men talked of it at the store, and earth, sky and water called to each other in glad relief, “The war is over!”

But there came a morning when my father walked up from the railroad-station very fast, and looking very serious.  He pushed right past me as I sat in the doorway.  I followed him into the kitchen where my mother was washing dishes, and heard him say, “They have killed Lincoln!” and then he burst into tears.  I had never before seen my father shed tears—­in fact, I had never seen a man cry.  There is something terrible in the grief of a man.

Soon the church-bell across the road began to toll.  It tolled all that day.  Three men—­I can give you their names—­rang the bell all day long, tolling, slowly tolling, tolling until night came and the stars came out.  I thought it a little curious that the stars should come out, for Lincoln was dead; but they did, for I saw them as I trotted by my father’s side down to the post-office.

There was a great crowd of men there.  At the long line of peeled-hickory hitching-poles were dozens of saddle-horses.  The farmers had come for miles to get details of the news.

On the long counters that ran down each side of the store men were seated, swinging their feet, and listening intently to some one who was reading aloud from a newspaper.  We worked our way past the men who were standing about, and with several of these my father shook hands solemnly.