Such rare days were all blown through with the wonderful wind of spring. Spring wind is really different from any other. It is not a finished thing, like the mellow winds of summer and the cold blasts of winter. It is an imperfect blend of shivering reminiscence and eager promise. One moment it breathes sun and stirring earth, the next it reminds us of old snow in the hollows, and bleak northern slopes.
When, on these days, the wind blew to us, almost before we saw it, the first greeting of the arbutus, it always seemed that the day had found its complete and satisfying expression. Every one comes to realize, at some time in his life, the power of suggestion possessed by odors. Does not half the power of the Church lie in its incense? An odor, just because it is at once concrete and formless, can carry an appeal overwhelmingly strong and searching, superseding all other expression. This is the appeal made to me by the arbutus. It can never be quite precipitated into words, but it holds in solution all the things it has come to mean—dear human tradition and beloved companionship, the poetry of the land and the miracle of new birth.
In late March or early April I am likely to see the first blossom on some friend’s table—I try not to see it first in a florist’s display! To my startled question she gives reassuring answer, “Oh, no, not from around here. This came from Virginia.”
Days pass, and, perhaps, the mail brings some to me, this time from Pennsylvania or New Jersey, and soon I can no longer ignore the trays of tight, leafless bunches for sale on street corners and behind plate-glass windows. “From York State,” they tell me. I grow restive.
“Jonathan,” I say, holding up a spray for him to smell, “we’ve got to go. You can’t resist that. We’ll take a day and go for it—and trout, too.”
It is as well that arbutus comes in the trout season, for to take a day off just to pick a flower might seem a little absurd. But, coupled with trout—all is well. Trout is food. One must eat. The search for food needs no defense, and yet, the curious fact is, that if you go for trout and don’t get any, it doesn’t make so much difference as you might suppose, but if you go for arbutus and don’t get any, it makes all the difference in the world. And so Jonathan knows that in choosing his brook for that particular day, he must have regard primarily to the arbutus it will give us and only secondarily to the trout.