The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1896-11-05
ODD OLD WEATHER VA les.


call it now, but years ago a weather.
vane epidemic swept through this colIn-
try, and for time it ragged as fiercely
as the lightning-rod plague or the fancy
hitching-post curse of more recent
years.
Everybody and everything fell before
1t. Churches, barns and meeting-houses
all bore the badge of the malady, and
farmers, vestrymen and volunteer fire
men reveled in the weather vane until
it almost became habit with them.
Like the metallic but hollow wild
beasts that ten years ago roamed over
the front yards of the land and then
suddenly returned to their native
haunts in the iron foundries, the
weather vane ran its course and the
epidemic passed away without seriously
affecting the nations health or pros
perity.
In some places the relics of that era
nre still to be found, and for the collec-
tor of antique weather vanes no locality
offers such promise of a fruitful and
hountiful harvest as Stratford, Conn.
The seat of the whole malady seems to
have been located in that quiet little
New England village, and for miles
around TRACED with unabated fury long
after the rest of the country had recov-
cred.
Within two miles of Oronoque, a tiny
suburb of Stratford, there are dozens of
weather-vane monstrosities still stand
ing. They blossom on either side of the
road and from every barn and farm
house. There are bronze arrows and
helmets, wooden race horses, warped
NenuSes and stunted Apollos. But the
gem of the collection undoubtedly is a
weather-beaten old Cupid impaed on
the sharp end of u stick high above the
gables of weather-beaten old barn.
From the general outline it is supposed
that it originally was intended as d
cross between a cherub and Il Cupid, but
some excellent authorities hold that the
vane is really a reproduction from a
Well-known photograph of Gabriel
taken while he was still in short
pants" This theory is based upon the
fact that the figure holds in his hands Il
trumpet instead of the orthodox culver
and bow. Those who oppose this view,
insist that the trumpet is not trumpet,
but merely a dinner horn which the
architect playfnlly put there to tease
the honest but hungry hired man.
70 the casual tourist who is not a
student of weather vanes the mongrel
Cupid seems more like the living ex-
ample of some new brand of babies
food, and as he balances himself by his
fat little stomach on the sharp end of
that stick and wiggleS around where
the wind listeth, he seems to have
taken an overdose. As the weather
vane is not a scintillating success, and
unless the wind listeth unusually hard
it cannot bulge him, but as an example
OF the most acute form of the mania, he
is practically priceless.
Farther down the road, toward Shell
ton, there is another striking proof of
the virulent form of the ancient craze.
In pretty old colonial farmhouse, with
green blinds and yellow and white
trimmings, lives a retired minister of
the Gospel, and from the peak of the
house of the minister a race "hoss" with
'i''N-Ni 'iiiO lItClN Is TAXING Sl Warnings
up gallOp in midair. As an ornament
Tor jockey club the hooded and
blanketed steed could not be improved
upon, but as weather vane on a min
listers home. it is simply Illustrative of
now the plague spared neither the
righteous nor the ungodly. Bv a Curl
GUS coincidence horse trainer lived,
fine uniniStar
size the curious forms of the disease
from his barn a truck horse cast in an
heroic mold and totally out of svmpa-
thy with the trainers spirited stock
and the trainers spirited ways, plods
PiacidIy onward, never getting any
where and never telling within four
points of where the wind is. but con.
tented i'll setting worthy example for
the young brothers below and in rent
ing out his arched neck as lodging
house for the birds of the air.
But high above all these, proud in the
CONSCIOUSNESS of its own superiority.
stands the rarest and the Oldest weather
Vane freak i'll that vane-strcken ter
r1tory. From the pinnacle of the steeple
of Christ church is perched a figL$:ng
cock, with mead thrown back in e Iusty
crow and tail feathers arched dehantly.
For 1S9 years that rooster has stood
there growing ceaselessly and bolster
ouslN over all creeds, all denominations
and all other weather cocks Christ
church, the oldest Protestant Episcopal
church in the state of Connecticut, has
been rebuilt three times, and over each
structure that old bird has stood guard
IN all kinds of weather, and somehow,
in his brave old strut and swagger.
he seems to embody both the idea of the
"church militant and warning" of to-
day and the promise of the Church
triumphant" of the future.-N. Y.
Press.
The Atmosphere.