The Unexpected

“When you are a boy and stand in the stillness of woods, which can be so still your heart almost stops beating and makes you want to stand there in the green twilight until you feel your very feet sinking into and clutching the earth like roots and your body breathing slow through its pores like the leaves—when you stand there and wait for the next drop to drop with its small, flat sound to a lower leaf, that sound seems to measure out something, to put an end to something, to begin something, and you cannot wait for it to happen and are afraid it will not happen, and then when it has happened, you are waiting again, almost afraid” (65).

Although Seth is a callow, reluctant nine-year-old boy, he has a premonition (above) that he cannot live in his childish unchanging world forever. The drops from leaves are representative of events that will interrupt time and the order of Seth’s life. The strange man, the cold weather, and the flood are some of “drops” that teach Seth about the unexpected interruptions in life.

The contradictory phrase, "blackberry winter," is used in the South to describe a brief period of cold weather in June that coincides with the blooming of blackberries. What purpose does this contradictory phrase serve in the story (besides just being a title and weather pattern)?