Queer Signs of Coming Events.
There is old sign that if the housewife drops her dishcloth, "company" is coming. Did you ever hear of it? Then there are signs about the weather, about luck, and about many similar things. We want to know the signs common with you. Do you live in the South, in Canada, or in the West? Tell the Table briefly a few of the signs you oftenest hear. Those that strike us as the oddest and the funniest we will print, giving credit to the senders of them. Cannot our readers abroad help us on the collection? We hope so.
Kinks.
No. 50.—A Diagonal Acrostic.
Here is as pretty a puzzle as one could wish to see. Its answer is simple, and yet fewer things are harder to construct than this double acrostic. It looks easy—but! You remember the story of the fresh Freshman at college who thought proverbs simple. His professor told him to make a few! In the following the primal diagonal reads downwards, the final one upwards. The five short couplet lines throw light on the cross-words:
Two brothers we are said to be,
And children of the year;
We come each spring, and always bring
Some proof that spring is here.
The elder fumes and shakes his plumes
That spring should be so coy;
But, much more mild, the younger child
Sheds copious tears of joy.