• Author:
• Editor: B2331
• Newspaper: The Umpire volume 2
• Page Number: 4
• Date: March 26 1913
• Tags:
• advice

BELIEF IN SIGNS.

A subscriber recently wrote asking the “Ladies Home Journal’’ if, in this en- lightened day, it was sensibleto ‘‘believe in signs.”” The reply of the editorial oracle was to the effect, that only the most ignorant of people nowadays placed any credence in ‘‘signs’’ being the fore- runners of certain evenss.

Perhaps this is correct. Yet it causes a certain twinge to us of the old school, brought up in the country, where, time after time, as boys, we witnessed the certain prophecy of various signs and omens that apparently never failed.

For instance, the writer, when a country lad, grew into a firm belief, which has not yet been lost, in the fol- lowing signs.

To meet a skunk is a sign that you are going to get a new suit of clothes.

To be hit on the head with a brick is a sign of bad luck.

To find yourself in the field with a bull, who is rushiug towards you with his head lowered, is a sign that youare going to travel.

To hear a negro tramp singing him- self to sleep in your barn, is a sign that you are going to meet a dark man with a club.

To feel the limb of a cherry tree breaking beneath your weight, when about 40 feet from the ground, is a sign that you will see stars.

To be called quietly to the woodshed by your father—but what’s the use? No- body believes in signsnowadays, and we don’t have any woodsheds now!