Welcome back, everyone, to 1001 classic short stories and tales.

This is your host, John Haggardorn.

We have two O'Henry short stories for you today.

Today, a story from one of our favorite authors, O'Henry.

It's called The Harbinger.

Enjoy.

Long before the spring tide is felt in the dull bosom of the yokel, does the city man know that the grass-green goddess is upon her throne.

He sits at his breakfast eggs and toast, be girt by stone walls, opens his morning paper, and sees journalism leave vernalism at the post.

For whereas Spring's couriers were once the evidence of our finer

senses, now the associated press does the trick. The warble of the first Robin in Hackensack,

the stirring of the maple sap in Bennington, the budding of the pussy welles along Main Street

in Syracuse, the first chirp of the bluebird,

the swan song of the Blue Point, the annual tornado in St. Louis, the plaint of the peach

pessimist from Pompton, New Jersey. The regular visit of the team, wild goose with a broken

leg to the pond near Billswater Junction. The base attempt of the drug trust to boost the price of

quinine foiled in the house by Congressman Jenks. The first tall poplar struck by lightning and the

usual stunned picnickers who had taken refuge. The first crack of the ice jam in the Allegheny

River. The finding of a violet in its mossy bed by the correspondent at round

corners. These are the advanced signs of the burgeoning season that are wired into the

wise city, while the farmers see nothing but winter upon his dreary fields. But these be mere

externals. The true harbinger is the heart. When Streffen seeks his Chloe and Mike is Maggie,

then only his spring arrived and the newspaper report of the five-foot rattler killed in

...