What They Say In New England

WHEN I began to collect these signs and sayings, it was with the idea of gathering them for my own entertainment. In days like the present of universal books and schools, I thought I could hope to get only a few remnants of the thought and notions that have descended to us from the illiterate and superstitious ages of the past; and I supposed that by the time I had picked up two or three scores of these oddities the subject would be exhausted as far as New England was concerned. But when I began to notice, I found that people in their every-day conversation were constantly dropping remarks on the significance of all sorts of things that were a part of this old folk-lore. When questioned, nearly every one, old and young, could repeat a few sayings of the kind I sought, and among these were almost always some I had not heard before. My collection grew until I saw the possibility of a volume, and I could not but wonder what the superstitions of the Dark Ages were like if these were only remnants.