WE’RE celebrating the holidays with Harold F. Cruickshank—creator of those great Aces of the Western Front’s Hell Skies—Red Eagle, Sky Wolf, and Sky Devil. But this holiday season it’s going to be a down home Christmas featuring Cruickshank’s Pioneer Folk stories from the pages of Range Riders Western (1945-1952) on Mondays and Fridays; and Cruickshank’s own recollections of homesteading life from The Edmonton Journal’s The Third Column on Wednesdays.

The Edmonton Journal regularly set aside the third column on its editorial page for submissions from freelance writers, of which Cruickshank was an occasional contributor over the years. His columns frequently focused on his life growing up as a homesteader with his father and brother who had all immigrated from Scotland in 1905 to Barrhead, Canada along the famed Klondike Trail, just to the northwest of Fort Edmonton.

Here’s one last The Third Column by Cruickshank to end the month and start the new year!

The Third Column

by Harold F. Cruickshank • Edmonton Journal, Edmonton, Canada • Thursday, 1 April 1954

Spring Around the Corner

So the great Burns opened his poem. “Up In The Morning Early.” I imagine that Rabbie must have written this poem one wild March, for his next stanza pretty well describes the conditions hereabouts when:

Watching the antics of the sparrows of late I have noticed quite a bit of confusion.

Two weeks ago. when there were marked signs of an early spring, a mated pair of sparrows decided to take up residence in a “bungalow” originally built for the tree swallows. Mrs. Sparrow fussed about, tossing bits of last year’s old nest out the front door, and began building a new one.

Mr Sparrow was very busy putting on quite a show of fidelity. An unattached hen was determined to break up the home, but Mr. Sparrow chased her away repeatedly.

When at last Mrs. Sparrow elected to go into residence, it was amusing to observe that the ol’ boy was much less severe on the intruding “vampire” he. He made some sporadic, token counterattacks, but these he soon gave up. It was very early in the season, and I imagine that he wasn’t too sure of the permanency of his new union with the incumbent Mrs. Sparrow Be that as it may, the “hussy” was permitted to perch quite close to the new home—just in case.

Then, alas, the “cauld” wind came to “drive sairly” down over the sector, and with the sharp drop in temperatures, the sparrow marriage seemed to I dissolve automatically. No doubt the sparrows were the victims of an attack of premature spring fever. They have “flown the coop!”

The sparrows are not the only creatures to have fallen victims to the false spring. Many an overcoat has been tossed into the moth-proof bag, and topcoats substituted. As a result, presumably, many of our fellow citizens are barking and sneezing.

* * *

Down through the ages. March has been one of the most maligned months of the year, and not without some justification.

Perhaps the best that may be said for it is that it is the natal month of some very important persons, and that it is closer to April and May than are Decemoer and January. As well, it is the source of a pretty well frayed cliche: “Spring is just around the corner.”

That is a fact . . . Spring is just around the corner. Don’t ask me what corner, but it is there somewhere. At this season of the year, forgetting the sparrows for the moment, I think back to the arrival of the ducks and geese and other harbingers of spring—the songbirds. There were times, of course, when the sharp-witted geese and ducks miscalculated, or were wholly deceived by the false spring, which had decided to flirt with winter a while longer.

Venturesome ducks and geese frequently poured down on the lakes almost before the Ice was clear. Wherever there were patches of open water, you would find the feathered swimmers, their chorus disturbing the air. Their voice sounds, more than any other factor but the sun, seemed to have more influence on the reawakening of springtime in the wilderness.

* * *

Now and then, alas, they, too, became victims of Nature’s fickleness. When sharp temperatures would tighten up the ice, and fierce blizzards slant down on a formation of huddled ducks or geese, the effect was very depressing on human beings. We felt that Nature had deceived us, cheated us. But as I look back visualizing those periods of uncertainty, I think it was all for the best. When the true spring came with startling suddenness, as surely it will return this year, it was doubly welcome. The better always seems much better after we have tasted and accepted the bitter.

Parting with March and its legerdemain should be an occasion for rejoicing. With the dawning of April we may in earnest begin to apply the age-worn cliche: “Spring is just around the corner!”