That is the way of the large rivers, whose ice is free and floating.

The snow in the forest melts slowly, and when the ice is attacked, it goes gradually, gently, without uproar.

The spring comes in the woods with swelling of buds and a lengthening of drooping catkins, with honking of wild geese, and cawing of crows coming up from the lower countries to divide with their larger cousins, the ravens, the spoils of winter's killing.
The small birds from the South appear with a few short notes of spring, and the pert chicadees that have braved it all winter, now lead the singing with their cheery "I told you so" notes, till robins and blackbirds join in, and with their more ambitious singing make all the lesser roundelays forgot.
Once the winter had taken a backward step--spring found it easy to turn retreat into panic and rout; and the ten days Quonab stayed away were days of revolutionary change.

For in them semi-winter gave place to smiling spring, with all the snow-drifts gone, except perhaps in the shadiest hollows of the woods.
It was a bright morning, and a happy one for Rolf, when he heard the Indian's short "Ho," outside, and a minute later had Skookum dancing and leaping about him.

On Hoag the effect was quite different.