Few facts are better established than that the February thaw is the poorest time of year for everybody.

But for a boy it is worse than poorest; it is bankrupt.

The remnant streaks of old soot-speckled snow left against the north walls of houses have no power to inspire; rather, they are dreary reminders of sports long since carried to satiety.

One cares little even to eat such snow, and the eating of icicles, also, has come to be a flaccid and stale diversion.

There is no ice to bear a skate, there is only a vast sufficiency of cold mud, practically useless.
Sunshine flickers shiftily, coming and going without any honest purpose; snow-squalls blow for five minutes, the flakes disappearing as they touch the earth; half an hour later rain sputters, turns to snow and then turns back to rain--and the sun disingenuously beams out again, only to be shut off like a rogue's lantern.