In the annals of the rural weather prophets, the winter had been set down as the coldest ever known--a winter of many snows, of frozen rivers, and skies so heavily clouded that there was little difference between the day and the night. Wild creatures had frozen and starved to death, and man and beast had drawn near to each other in the companionship of common suffering. Then, as if repenting of her harshness to her helpless children, Nature had sent a swift and early spring. It was March, but hardly a March wind had blown. The rain that fell was not the cold, wind-driven rain of March; it was the warm, delicate April shower. The sun had the warmth of May, and all the flowers of field, forest, and garden had felt the summons of sun and rain and started up from the underworld in such haste that they trod on each other's heels. Flowers that never had met before stood side by side and looked wonderingly at each other. The golden flame of the daffodils was almost burnt out, and the withered blossoms drooped in the grass like extinguished torches; but hyacinths were opening their censers; tulips were budding; the plumes of the lilacs showed color, and honeysuckles and roses looked as if they were trying to bloom with the lilac and the snowball. March had blustered in with the face and voice of February, but she was going out a flower-decked Queen of May. The fragrant air was like the touch of a warm hand. Fleets of white clouds sailed on the sea of pale blue ether, and the trees, not yet in full leaf, cast delicate shadows on the grass. On a day like this in ancient Rome, young and old clad themselves in garments of joy and went forth to the festival of the goddess of grain and harvests; and under such skies, English poets were wont to sing of skylarks and of golden daffodils. But in the calendar of the Kentucky housewife there is no Floralia or Thesmophoria, and no smile or breath of song was on the lips of the girl who was climbing the back stairs of an old farmhouse, with a bucket of water in one hand and a cake of soap in the other, to celebrate the Christian festival of spring cleaning. The steps were steep and narrow, and every time she set her foot down they creaked dismally, as if to warn the climber that they might fall at any minute. She toiled painfully up and set the bucket on the floor. Where should she begin her work? She went into the nearest bedroom, opened the door of a closet, and looked disgustedly at the disorder within,--coats, hats, trousers, disabled suspenders, a pair of shoes caked with mud, an old whip-handle, an empty blacking box, a fishing-pole and tangled line, a hammer, and a box of rusty nails. It was not an unfamiliar sight. She had cleaned the boys' closet and the boys' room every spring for--how many years? It made her tired to think of it, and she sat down on the edge of the slovenly bed and stared hopelessly around the low-ceiled, dingy room. The mouldy wall paper was peeling off, the woodwork was an