The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1896-11-06
a WEATHER VANE CRAZE
It Ragged Fiercely in q Connecticut
Town Many Years Age.
Ridiculous Relics Of the Queer Epidemic
Stiu Greet the Eye OF the VS.
itor to the Anticipated
Bur-.


Burg.
Only the Oldest inhabitants can re.
call it now, but years ago n weather
vane epidemic swept through this coun-
try, and for n time it ragged as fiercely
rs the lightnirg-rod plague or the fancy
hitching-post curse Of more recent
years.
Everybody and everything fell before
il. Churches, barns and neetinghouses
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 roaned over
the front yards of the land and then
suddenly returned to their native
haunts in the iron foundries, the
weather vanc ran its course ard the
epidemic passed away without seriously
affecting the nations health or pros
perity.
In some places the relics of that era
are still TO be found, and for the collec-
tor OF antique weather vanes no locality
offers such promise Of fruitful and
bountiful harvest as Stratford, Conn.
The seat Of the whole malady seems 10
have been located in that quiet little
New England village, and for miles
around itraged with undated fury long
after the rest of the country had recov.
cred.
Within two miles of Orouoque, a tiny
suburb OF Stratford, there are dozens Of
weather-vane nonstrosities still stand
ing. They blossom on either side Of the
road and from every barn and farm
house. There are bronze arrows end
helmets, wooden race horses, warped
Venuses and stunted Apollos. But the
gem of the collection undoubtedly is
old Cupid impaled on
the sharp end of a stick high above the
gables of n weather-beaten old barn.
From the general outline it is supposed
that it originally was intended as q
cross between acherub and a 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 a
trumpet instead of the orthodox CULVER
and bow. Those who oppose this view,
insist that the trumpet is nota trumpet,
but merely q dinner horn which the
architect playfully put there to tease
the honest but hungry hired man.
To 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 boss WI tn
brazen efrontery is taking a warming
NOs A
for jockey club the hooded and
blanketed steed could not be improved
upon, but as a weather vane on n min
ister's home, it is simply illustrative OF
how the plague spared neither the
righteous nor the ungodly. BY curl
Gus coincidence a horse trainer lived
near the minister, and as il TO ernpha-
size the curious forms of the disease
from his barn truck horse cast in AN
heroic mold end totally out of sympa-
thy with the trainers spirited stock
and the trainers spirited ways, plods
Fiacidly onward, never getting any
where and never telling within four
points of where the wind is, but con-
tented in setting a 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
of its own superiority,
stands the rarest and the oldest weather
Vane freak in that vanestricl<en ter
ritory. From tie pinnacle of the steeple
Of Christ church is perched fighting
Dock. with head thrown back in q lusty
crow and tail feathers arched defantiy.
For 1S9 years that rooster has stood
there Growing ceaselessly and bolster
ously over al creeds, all denominations
md all other weather cocks. Christ
church, the Oldest Protestant Episcopal
church in the state of Connecticut. has
teen rebuilt three times, and over each
structure that old bind has stood guard
n oil kinds of weather, aDd somehow,
n his brave old strut and swaggeE,
ne seems to eInbody both the idea of the
church militant and warning" Of to-
lay and the promise of the church
Of the future.-S. Y.
Press