Thanks to the Frost.
Let a farmer clear a field of stones as carefully as he will, there are stones again next spring; that is, if he lives in the East, where stones grow, and not in the pulverized prairie States.
You see, the snow melts, and the water gets down into the soil and under the boulders. Then comes a cold snap, and the water freezes, and in freezing irresistibly expands. Below is frozen soil, as hard as rock. Above are only the boulder, a foot or two of soil, and air. Something must give, so up goes the boulder. This happens many times, and finally the stone is lifted to the surface of the field, and the farmer must haul it away.
This action of freezing water is what loosens bricks in the sidewalks, splits off slabs from buildings, and plays many other disagreeable pranks.
But it does much good,—good that is more than a recompense. It opens up the most dry and hard-packed soil, so that by springtime it is soft and mellow, and the sun and rain can get down to the seeds. Better still, it is this frost that is the manufacturer of the soil itself, creeping into the hardest rocks and flaking them off bit by bit, pushing off each season a thin layer of pulverized rock, till the granite has become clay, and the sandstone a sandy loam. Were it not for the frost, we should have few farms.
And thanks also, quite equally, to the frosts of life! We do not like them. Our blood runs cold at the touch of disaster. We pray heaven to save us from the winter and bring us speedily to spring and to warm suns again.
But God knows best. He is breaking up our hardnesses. He is making way for His fruitful rain and sunshine and the growing of His seeds. He is taking away the stony heart and giving you a heart of flesh.
The boulders come to the top. Your life looks rough and angular after it? Yes; but never mind, so the soil is made, and the seeds grow, for the sheaves of the Harvest Home!