A Lesson with a Sequel

Uncle Tom's Story

Hanging May-Baskets




APPLES, RIPE AND ROSY, SIR.


"APPLES, RIPE AND ROSY, SIR."

I.

What a month of March it was! And after an unusually mild season, too.
Old Winter seemed to have hoarded up all his stock of snow and cold
weather, and left it as an inheritance to his wild and rollicking heir,
that was expending it with lavish extravagance.

March was a jolly good fellow though, in spite of his bluster and
boisterous ways. There was a wealth of sunshine in his honest heart,
and he evidently wanted to render everybody happy. He appeared to have
entered into a compact with Santa Claus to make it his business to see
that the boys and girls should not, in the end, be deprived of their
fair share of the season's merrymaking; that innumerable sleds and
toboggans and skates, which had laid idle since Christmas, and been the
objects of much sad contemplation, should have their day, after all.