Introductory 9
those about the weather, have a scientific foundation; and I do not speak of those, but of such as seem to be entirely without sense. It is not always easy to decide which sayings have truth to back them and which only fancy. If you will listen to the relation of them, some of the most fantastic will be told with such detail and so stoutly championed that you are tempted to question if the days of miracles really are past. A man will tell you about horse-hairs turning into snakes; and you will hear of wart cures, and of the good or ill effect of one thing and another,—and all of the list “known” to be true,—till you begin to think that perhaps your own knowledge of the supernatural is very narrow and bigoted.
Perhaps no class is more addicted to sign-telling and belief in signs than those who have emigrated to this country in comparatively recent years. It is their children at the schools who are most apt to keep the rest posted as to what means what, and as to when things portend disaster. I do not know that any of the signs gathered are natives of New England by right of invention. I suppose most
