NEW ENGLAND WEATHER

There is a [v]sumptuous variety about the New England weather that
compels the stranger's admiration--and regret. The weather is always
doing something there; always attending strictly to business; always
getting up new designs and trying them on the people to see how they
will go. But it gets through more business in spring than in any other
season. In the spring I have counted one hundred and thirty-six
different kinds of weather within four and twenty hours. It was I who
made the fame and fortune of the man who had that marvelous collection
of weather on exhibition at the Centennial, which so astounded the
foreigners. He was going to travel around the world and get specimens
from all climes. I said, "Don't do it; just come to New England on a
favorable spring day." I told him what we could do in the way of style,
variety, and quantity. Well, he came, and he made his collection in four
days. As to variety, he confessed that he got hundreds of kinds of
weather that he had never heard of before. And as to quantity, after he
had picked out and discarded all that was blemished in any way, he not
only had weather enough, but weather to spare, weather to hire out,
weather to sell, weather to deposit, weather to invest, and weather to
give to the poor.

Old Probabilities has a mighty reputation for accurate prophecy and
thoroughly deserves it. You take up the paper and observe how crisply
and confidently he checks off what to-day's weather is going to be on
the Pacific, down South, in the Middle States, in the Wisconsin region.
See him sail along in the joy and pride of his power till he gets to New
England, and then see his tail drop. _He_ doesn't know what the weather
is going to be in New England. Well, he mulls over it, and by and by he
gets out something like this: "Probable northeast to southwest winds,
varying to the southward and westward and eastward and points between;
high and low barometer, swapping around from place to place; probable
areas of rain, snow, hail, and drought, succeeded or preceded by
earthquakes with thunder and lightning." Then he jots down this
postscript from his wandering mind, to cover accidents: "But it is
possible that the program may be wholly changed in the meantime." Yes,
one of the brightest gems in the New England weather is the dazzling
uncertainty of it. There is certain to be plenty of weather, but you
never can tell which end of the procession is going to mo