The Brattleboro daily reformer. (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1913-1955, 1922-12-04
OId-Time Weather Prophets in Vermont

In Washington that old man. Prob
is mostly always on his job;
Sometimes he amt. But in Vermont
There used TO be-depend upon't.
In days of yore, some prophets who
Could read the calendar right through !:
Forecast, not only one days weather,
But bunch The season all together.
Barometers they didn't want
Those weather prophets in Vermont.
They diagnosed climatic ills
As doctors do malarial chills.
More signs they had TO prove their knack
Than has the Solar Zodiac;
And If they failed they knew the
cause;
The gulf stream wasn't where it was.
Old Bijah Pike could "tell as how"
When in the fall hair on the cow
Or cat grew thick you nights well
know
-Four months on runners folks would
Jack Frost would long be hangin round
And snow lie deep upon the ground.
But by some goosebone fol-de-rol
lack Van proved not much snow
would fall.
From weather prophesying /
Will Just switch off to tell you why
Old Bijah changed his residence
Migrated from Mount Holly hence;
For somehow, I'm inclined TO want
To talk of winter in Vermont.
Where fences disappear from sight,
Like old Pompeii, overnight.
Old Bijah in Mount Holly dweIt.
Where snow in May begins to melt
He'd chopped and logged it many
year
Ere he could read his title clear:
Then he made up his mind to go
To live at Bethel 'Lympus, so
He wouldn't have to on bare ground
Three months each year go draggin'
round.
As dispensation from the Lord,
Those men agreed with one accord
If sun shOne out on Candlem's Day
The ground hog in his lair would stay
And winter in the lap of spring
For six weeks more be lingering.
Old lack allowed ii might be eight
Ere '0ld Red Rob would Seek his
mate.
But Zaccheus was a pessimist
And argument could not resist
And his demonstrating power
Would fill the weather bureau drawer
The Durfee boys said Uncle Zack
Was some like Ayers'es almanac -
Strung his predictions out so long
They surely couldn't all go wrong.
As each months final Friday was
So next months weather's be- because
No surer sign was even known.
Not hog melt, even, or gooSe-bone;
lack Yam since eighteen forty nine
Had noticed that last Friday sign;
And what, forsooth, old lack averred
Folks knew was truth and had oc-
CURED.
Thick huSks in autumn on the corn
But preadventure, husks were thin,
Green Christmas" winter would be-
gin,
And that meant grave yards waxing fat,
Old Doctor Richmond well knew that.
And winters rigor, some folks felt,
Depended on the porker's melt.
The time the wild geese made their
fight
The weather-wise would never slight;
And when the wedge-shaped flock flew
South,
They skyward gazed with open mouth
And if the migratory bird
Made early fight their pulses stirred
All-thought-of drifting snow and ice
And four-foot-cordwood' nascent
price.
In newo' the moon they planted peas
Or was it old? just as you please.
Some skeptics thought it food for
mirth
To say they planted in the earth.
But earth or moon. those wise old tops
Most always got the biggest crops
And folks who fout such certain signs
Will get few peas. but mostly vines.
| really can't tell all want
About those-prophets in Vermont;
More weather lore those men possessed
Than meteOrOlogistS have guessed.
But as all plans of mice and men
Sometimes go wrong it was so then:
Dry weather signs oft time brought
wet;
{ Some people say tbs that way yet.
L'envoi.-
Put where are those old men today,
Whose memory my dream doth haunt?
They saw theFsign and went the way;
Those weather prophets in Vermont
-NIIT TON rGTJDnFN BROWN