Clearing Weather — Cornelia Meigs

1928. Meigs is the winner of the Newberry Medal for her book, Invincible Louisa, the story of the author of Little Women. This book begins: The bent plum trees set in the square of rough grass behind the Blackbird Inn, were as white on this mild February morning as though it were May. Ordinarily their branches were as black with age as they were twisted by sea winds; for beyond the hawthorn hedge was the marsh, across which gales from the north and east could sweep unhindered; and beyond the marsh was the sea. It was neither blossom nor snow which covered the wide-reaching boughs in that hazy sunshine, but a gossamer-light veil of frost which lay upon every branch and twig, and penciled each with a delicate tracery of white. Nicholas Drury opening the door which gave upon the garden, could see that the rime-covered boughs were not stirred by any breath of wind and that even the brown expanse of the marsh lay unrippled by any breeze in the stillness of the winter dawn.