Waterbury Democrat., 1901-08-27
HIS WIPES HAIR

F "'Ta1k about your barometers, rheu- matism, gourds. goosebones and corns as weather prognostigators,n said the man who knows; they are not In 1t when it comes to weather predictions with the hair of my wife. l would rather have her promise as to weather any time than that of Captain Blythe or the best and luckiest weather bu- reau observer who ever engaged in the predicting or weather forecasting Dusl- ness. For years 1 have taken her ad- vice as to what the weather would be during the day, and for years have dressed and prepared myself accord ingly. Long ago I found out that ny wife spoke truhtfully when she told me rain would fall, or that the day would be fine, and she never made mistake once in q hundred times. l accused her of all sorts of things, such as having rheumatism, a goosebone and almanacs. and advised her to go to q chiropodist, for I imagined it was by her feet. that she was able to so truthfully feretell the weather
 During all these years I have been guided by her and, when she tells me in the morning that rain will fall I wear dark clothes and carry an um- brella, and I find I have use for it be fore I return home at night On her promise that the day would be fine I have invariably worn light clothes and left my umbrella at home, and I have never found that 1 had use for 1t. A shower may fall during the day, but the sun always comes after it, and that is the nearest my wife has missed truthfuIly fofecasting the weather But she was never able to tell what the weather would be except for twelve hours,- and she would never risk her reputation by making predictions for longer than that. And her predic- tions were always for the day only, and never for the night, and often when we went out at night we were acught unprepared by rain. On these ocasions I frequently twitted my wife with being false prophet or rather bad one, but I could never get her to venture a prediction on the weather at night.
 '.All these years the matter has been a great mystery to me, and 1 was nev- CT able to fathom it; but a few days ago she explained how she was able to so closely tell what the weather would be during the day, and her ex- planation- of the, matter was so sim pie that I wondered why the solution of what I thought n mystery, or the pOSSeSSlOU or SecOnu SlSllI eOn UlV Swife's part had never occurred to me *before. Like many other women, my wife's hair islnotcurly, and, like many 9otherdwomen,s she, puts it mp in curl pa spers orlkids. when she retires at night .and brushes it out curly in the morn ing. When her hair emerges from the curling papers damp, dank, sticky and heavy, she knows there will be plenty of rain and before night; when it is a trifie damp, she knows there will be showers or some rainfall, but not a real rainy day; when she brushes out the hair and it is dry. light and fluffy she knows to a certainty that the day will be a fine one; and then she makes her predictions with great as surance and earnestness. and I have seldom found her wrong. I suppose other men5s wives can tell in ad- vance the weather by the condition of their hair, but my wife's hair is better for this purpose than any barometer I have ever known."-New Orleans Times Democrat.