IS IT GOING TO RAIN? 



I SUSPECT that, like most countrymen, I was born 

 with a chronic anxiety about the weather. Is it go- 

 ing to rain or snow, be hot or cold, wet or dry ? 

 are inquiries upon which I would fain get the views 

 of every man I meet, and I find that most men are 

 fired with the same desire to get my views upon the 

 same set of subjects. To a countryman the weather 

 means something, to a farmer especially. The 

 farmer has sowed and planted and reaped and vended 

 nothing but weather all his life. The weather must 

 lift the mortgage on his farm, and pay his taxes, and 

 feed and clothe his family. Of what use is his labor 

 unless seconded by the weather? Hence there is 

 speculation in his eye whenever he looks at the 

 clouds, or the moon, or the sunset, or the stars ; for 

 even the milky way, in his view, may point the di- 

 rection of the wind to-morrow, and hence is closely 

 related to the price of butter. He may not take the 

 sage's advice to " hitch his wagon to a star," but he 

 pins his hopes to the moon and plants and sows by 

 its phases. 



