8 SIGNS AND SEASONS 



The critical moments of the day as regards the 

 weather are at sunrise and sunset. A clear sunset 

 is always a good sign; an obscured sun, just at the 

 moment of going down after a bright day, bodes 

 storm. There is much truth, too, in the saying 

 that if it rain before seven, it will clear before 

 eleven. Nine times in ten it will turn out thus. 

 The best time for it to begin to rain or snow, if it 

 wants to hold out, is about mid-forenoon. The 

 great storms usually begin at this time. On all 

 occasions the weather is very sure to declare itself 

 before eleven o'clock. If you are going on a pic- 

 nic, or are going to start on a journey, and the 

 morning is unsettled, wait till ten and one half 

 o'clock, and you shall know what the remainder 

 of the day will be. Midday clouds and afternoon 

 clouds, except in the season of thunderstorms, are 

 usually harmless idlers and vagabonds. But more 

 to be relied on than any obvious sign is that subtle 

 perception of the condition of the weather which 

 a man has who spends much of his time in the 

 open air. He can hardly tell how he knows it is 

 going to rain; he hits the fact as an Indian does 

 the mark with his arrow, without calculating and 

 by a kind of sure instinct. As you read a man's 

 purpose in his face, so you learn to read the pur- 

 pose of the weather in the face of the day. 



In observing the weather, however, as in the 

 diagnosis of disease, the diathesis is all-important. 

 All signs fail in a drought, because the predisposi- 

 tion, the diathesis, is so strongly toward fair wea- 



