Old Man Winter sat on his frozen throne of ice and snow. He had been there for a very, very long time, and he did not want to leave. "This land is mine!" he growled, pulling his heavy fur cloak tighter. His icy breath covered every tree branch and every blade of grass with frost.
The animals were so cold and tired! The little rabbits shivered in their burrows, and the birds huddled together on bare branches. The trees stretched their empty arms toward the sky and whispered, "Please, someone help us. We cannot bear this cold much longer." Even the river had stopped flowing, locked under thick ice.
One gray morning, an old woman appeared walking through the snow. She was wrapped in a brown deerskin blanket, and her hair was long and gray. She walked slowly, leaning on a wooden stick, but where her feet touched the ground, the snow seemed to melt just a tiny bit.
The old woman sat down beside Old Man Winter's cold fire. "May I warm myself here?" she asked gently. Winter grunted and waved his bony hand. "Sit if you like," he said crossly, "but the fire gives no heat. Nothing is warm in my land." The old woman just smiled a small, secret smile.
"Let me tell you a story to pass the time," said the old woman. She began to speak of warm summer meadows full of buzzing bees and bright butterflies. She told of children playing barefoot in soft green grass. Her voice was gentle and smooth, like warm honey, and Winter listened in spite of himself.
As the old woman kept talking, something strange began to happen. Old Man Winter's icy beard started to drip. His frosty cloak grew damp at the edges. "What is happening?" he muttered, looking at his hands. Tiny drops of water were trickling down his pale blue fingers. The old woman's stories were making him melt!
The ice on the river cracked and groaned. The snow on the hills began to shrink. Winter tried to blow his cold breath, but it came out as a soft, warm breeze instead. "Stop! Stop your stories!" he cried, but the old woman kept speaking, her voice growing warmer and stronger with every word.
Big tears rolled down Old Man Winter's cheeks and fell onto the snowy ground below. Each tear was warm — the first warm thing Winter had ever made. The tears soaked deep into the cold earth, waking up tiny seeds that had been sleeping all through the long winter.
Where Winter's warm tears touched the snow, something wonderful happened. Tiny green stems pushed up through the white ground. Then small pink and white buds appeared at the top of each stem. The buds opened their little petal faces and looked up at the sky. They were arbutus flowers — the very first flowers of spring!
More and more flowers appeared, spreading across the hillside like a soft pink blanket. The snow melted around them, and the brown earth showed through. Birds began to sing again. The rabbits poked their noses out of their burrows and wiggled them with delight. The whole world was waking up!
Old Man Winter grew smaller and smaller until he was just a little puddle of water that trickled away into the ground. The old woman stood up and let her deerskin blanket fall away. She was not old at all! She was Spring — young and beautiful, dressed in green with flowers in her dark hair and sunshine in her bright eyes.
Spring stretched her arms wide, and warmth spread across the whole land. The trees burst into green leaves, the river flowed free and sparkling, and the little arbutus flowers nodded happily in the gentle breeze. And ever since that day, the trailing arbutus has always been the very first flower of spring — a promise that no matter how long the winter, warmth and hope will always return.
