Norwich bulletin., 1920-01-16
OLD WEATHER SIGNS DON'T COME TRUE

CHritten Specially For The Bulletin.)
 One by one the roses fall" One by one our most cherished superstitions are knocked over by experience. One by one our pet weather signs fail.
 It's getting so that farmer man can't always tell which way the wind blows, or form any sure idea about the weather even when he does tell.
 Within the last month two of my special, particular, never-t to- be- dis puted weather signs have gone into the waste basket of discard.
 One morning all the brooks in the vicinity began to show signs ot an chor ice" That afternoon their orig inaI beds were one spongy mass of ice and slush;- they were lifted far above their natural level and. in many cases, were spreading on both sides over acres of usually dry ground.
 Anchor ice is a sure sign of com ing thaw" I've heard that over and over again, ever since l was knee high to a grasshopper." To make It sure, I asked every fellow I cnanced to meet if he knew what the anchor ice meant. Two were farmers; one was a wood-chopper: two were hunt CTS and trappers; one was farm nanO ana one q TeLiTeQ in on his eighties. The same answer came from every one. "Be thaw, to- morrow"
 But. instead. tomorrow" morning found the mercury we'll below zero. For three consecutive mornings it ran from ten to twenty below, and never got so warm as zero at any time dur ing the three days, if the thermometer was kept in the shade. Two of the T jed by a piercing wind which went through sheepskin lined coats and woolen sweaters and flannel shirts as if they had been cheese cloth. Meet ing one of the old farmers the second day. I said as bitingly as I knew how; If this is your idea of a thaw, what would you consider a cold snap?"
 -Oh, well" he chuckled. "all signs fail in dry weather"
 But it wasn't dry weather. It was winter weather; snowy, and blowy flurries of hard snowfakes that bit and stung when they struck one's face, like sharp gravel.
 A few days afterWard, another time-honored sign keeled over and kicked the bucket before my very eyes. Then, before finally dying, it spasmodicaIly Topped around and expiCed. faoing 'tother way, so as to prove itself a Lar. whichever way it looked
 The evening before had been a dull. gray. early darkening night. Not sign of red or scarlet or crimson vis- ible anywhere in the leaden skies. Next morning before sun-up the east Ern horizon glowed like a. huge car buncie with all the shades of red Q painter can imagine for his palette.
 Now. if there's any one weather sign which has been law and gospel for hundreds of years, it is the one described in the universally known doggerel-
 Evening red and morning gray
 BUT
 Evening gray and morning red
 Will bring down rain on the pilgrims
 head"
 It was "evening gray and morning red" that time. for sure. As gray gray and as red a red as i ever chanced to see.
 And the day turned out as bright and sunny and warm as any reason able man could ask in December. without cloud after ten o'clock. and not drop of rain or flake of snow all day Iongi
 That, however, was not the end of IT, The western sky. that same eve ming. was aglow with rosy radiance. as red as sky can be without clouds 10 gather up the color and mass it. And the next morning the east was a dull, heavy gray" but. alas! for the traveller who trusted to it's false prom isel About nine o'clock a few snow flakes fell-big fat, seggy fellows which you could almost hear "plump'' as they struck the ground They soon turned into rain, and it drizzled and drizzled, all day: was still drizz1ing when l went to bed
 So, there you have 1t.
 Isn't there anything more We can depend on? Has Nature become in- feeted with the prevalent human folly of not knowing her own mind and the prevalent human vice of not keeping her own word? Has she, too, gone Ion strike" against her own iob?, Has she set out to prove that the long ob- served sequences which we have come to believe were her laws" are noth- ing more than manifestations of her vhims which she can and will vary at caprice?