That Winter's blasts are born.

But ere the snow its cov'ring spreads

And Earth to sleep beguiles,

Old Summer lifts her sun-lit face,

Looks back at us and smiles.


One broiling August day an aged "cullud gemman," who was pushing a barrow of bricks, paused to dash the sweat from his dusky brow; then, shaking his fist at the sun, he apostrophized it thus:

"Fo' the Lawd's sake, war wuz yuh last Janooary?"


"Have you been touching the barometer, Jane?"