go.  But it gets through more business in spring than in any other season.  In the spring I have counted one hundred and thirty-six different kinds of weather inside of four-and-twenty hours.  It was I that made the fame and fortune of that man that had that marvelous collection of weather on exhibition at the Centennial, that so astounded the foreigners.  He was going to travel all over the world and get specimens from all the climes.  I said, “Don’t you do it; you come to New England on a favorable spring day.”  I told him what we could do in the way of style, variety, and quantity.  Well, he came and he made his collection in four days.  As to variety, why, he confessed that he got hundreds of kinds of weather that he had never heard of before.  And as to quantity—­well, after he had picked out and discarded all that was blemished in any way, he not only had weather enough, but weather to spare; weather to hire out; weather to sell; to deposit; weather to invest; weather to give to the poor.  The people of New England are by nature patient and forbearing, but there are some things which they will not stand.  Every year they kill a lot of poets for writing about “Beautiful Spring.”  These are generally casual visitors, who bring their notions of spring from somewhere else, and cannot, of course, know how the natives feel about spring.  And so the first thing they know the opportunity to inquire how they feel has permanently gone by.  Old Probabilities has a mighty reputation for accurate prophecy, and thoroughly well deserves it.  You take up the paper and observe how crisply and confidently he checks off what to-day’s weather is going to be on the Pacific, down South, in the Middle States, in the Wisconsin region.  See him sail along in the joy and pride of his power till he gets to New England, and then see his tail drop.  He doesn’t know what the weather is going to be in New England.  Well, he mulls over it, and by and by he gets out something about like this:  Probable northeast to southwest minds, varying to the southward and westward and eastward, and points between, high and low barometer swapping around from place to place; probable areas of rain, snow, hail, and drought, succeeded or preceded by earthquakes, with thunder and lightning.  Then he jots down this postscript from his wandering mind, to cover accidents:  “But it is possible that the program may be wholly changed in the mean time.”  Yes, one of the brightest gems in the New England weather is the dazzling uncertainty of it.  There is only one thing certain about it:  you are certain there is going to be plenty of it—­a perfect grand review; but you never can tell which end of the procession is going to move first.  You fix up for the drought; you leave your umbrella in the house and sally out, and two to one you get drowned.  You make up your mind that the earthquake is due; you stand from under, and take hold of something to steady yourself, and the first