During a six-mile drive, recently, I passed by eleven barns, upon nine of which were weathercocks. No two, I am positive, pointed in the same direction, and only one was very near to being right. Such, at least, was the conclusion, testing them by the compass, the movement of the clouds, and the wetted fingers which my companion and myself held up. Alas! I and my friend were at odds so far as the last test was concerned. It is little wonder that weather-prophets are so apt to be at loggerheads, if the direction of the wind admits of discussion. Could the various shapes of these weathercocks have had to do with the matter, assuming that the nine we saw were in working order? If so, what is a reliable pattern? I remember a remarkable wooden Indian with one foot raised as if the fellow was hopping, and with an impossible bow so held as to indicate that an arrow was about to be discharged. This wooden man obediently twirled to and fro in every passing breeze; but you were left in a quandary as to whether the wind’s direction was indicated by the uplifted foot or by the bow and arrow; for they pointed in opposite directions. “That is the merit of the vane,” once said the owner of the barn over which this “shapeless sculpture” towered; “you can use your own judgment.” Of the weathercocks seen on our ride there were one deer, two fishes, three arrows, a wild goose, and two gilded horses at full gallop. Only the wild goose told the truth, or almost told it. Now, as each farmer judges the weather of the day by the direction of the wind, think of bringing the owners of these nine differing weathercocks together! Each puts implicit faith in his own vane, and we all know what subject is first broached when two or twenty men are gathered together. Something like this would be the classification of the unhappy nine: Two positive clear-weather folk, two hopefully ditto, and five that predicted rain before night. Put it in another way: Four men would think, if they did not call, five men fools; and, all being equally obstinate, there would be the same division whatever was discussed. So, at least, the world wags in one section of our country.