32 IN WINTER. 



mon stock of accepted " sayings," not a man for 

 miles around but had some two or three that he 

 had framed for his own guidance. Every dis- 

 cussion teemed with "according to Joshua," or 

 " Jeremiah's saying is," but every man was 

 largely a follower of himself. Looking back- 

 ward, and studying my grandfather's "help," 

 and even my farmer neighbors, I see, in the light 

 of the present, that these men were both ignorant 

 and wise ; having a rich store of facts from which 

 they drew illogical deductions. 



Apropos of this, let me add that of a series 

 of sixteen newspaper clippings, from papers pub- 

 lished in October and November, 1889, fifteen of 

 them were predictions of a winter of unusual se- 

 verity in the Middle States. The one that main- 

 tained the coming of a mild winter gave no 

 reasons for such a conclusion, but stated very 

 briefly that " certain never-failing signs pointed 

 that way." It is a pity that such signs were 

 not generally known, now that the "ground- 

 goose, hog-bone " theory has proved unreliable. 



And so it was, a year earlier. During the 

 autumn of 1888, 1 gathered, by the aid of several 

 friends, a considerable number of newspaper 

 clippings concerning the character of the coming 

 winter. Most of them predicted a very severe 

 season and a late spring ; a few were somewhat 

 more moderate in the use of superlatives, and 



