ation of Old Prob. What is that? Old
Prob. is the new deity of the Americans, greater than AEolus, more
despotic than Sans-Culotte. The wind is his servitor, the lightning
his messenger. He is a mystery made of six parts electricity, and
one part "guess." This deity is worshiped by the Americans; his name
is on every man's lips first in the morning; he is the Frankenstein
of modern science. Housed at Washington, his business is to direct
the storms of the whole country upon New England, and to give notice
in advance. This he does. Sometimes he sends the storm, and then
gives notice. This is mere playfulness on his part: it is all one to
him. His great power is in the low pressure.

On the Bexar plains of Texas, among the hills of the Presidio, along
the Rio Grande, low pressure is bred; it is nursed also in the
Atchafalaya swamps of Louisiana; it moves by the way of Thibodeaux
and Bonnet Carre. The southwest is a magazine of atmospheric
disasters. Low pressure may be no worse than the others: it is
better known, and is most used to inspire terror. It can be summoned
any time also from the everglades of Florida, from the morasses of
the Okeechobee.

When the New-Englander sees this in his news paper, he knows what it
means. He has twenty-four hours' warning; but what can he do?
Nothing but watch its certain advance by telegraph. He suffers in
anticipation. That is what Old Prob. has brought about, suffering by
anticipation. This low pressure advances against the wind. The wind
is from the northeast. Nothing could be more unpleasant than a
northeast wind? Wait till low pressure joins it. Together they make
spring in New England. A northeast storm from the southwest!--there
is no bitterer satire than this. It lasts three days. After that
the weather changes into something winter-like.

A solitary song-sparrow, without a note of joy, hops along the snow
to the dining-room window, and, turning his little head aside, looks
up. He is hungry and cold. Little Minnette, clasping her hands
behind her back, stands and looks at him, and says, "Po' birdie!"
They appear to understand each other. The sparrow gets his crumb;
but he knows too much to let Minnette get hold of him. Neither of
these little things could take care of itself in a New-England spring
not in the depths of it. This is what the father of Minnette,
looking out of the window upon the wide waste of snow, and the
evergreens bent to the ground with the weight of it,