Spring

Spring was definitely here. There was still a slight chill, but all the accouterments of spring had arrived. There was the warm wind which carried the smells of warming earth and blossoming flowers down the hills to the lake which still had a rim of frost around it. The boy and his dog stood on the edge of the lake, looking at the tire swing attached to the gnarled old tree. Soon it would be summer and many hours of of many days would be spent swinging into the lake, engaging in the bonding all boys do, the all-powerful "dare."
"I dare you to do a flip!"
"You're on!"
And if ever a boy chickened out on a dare, he would be teased mercilessly, at least until the next boy failed to live up to his dare. All that was several months away, an eternity it seemed to him. So now he stood by the side of the ice-ringed lake, with snowbells and croucuses beginning their short flowering season, too soon to wilt in the heat that was to come.