There is a sumptuous variety about the New England weather that compels the
stranger's admiration -- and regret. The weather is always doing something
there; always attending strictly to business; always getting up new designs and
trying them on the people to see how they will 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.
-- Mark Twain (1835-1910)
I reverently believe that the maker who made us all makes everything in New
England, but the weather. I don't know who makes that, but I think it must be
raw apprentices in the weather-clerks factory who experiment and learn how, in
New England, for board and clothes, and then are promoted to make weather for
countries that require a good article, and will take their custom elsewhere
if they don't get it....
Have you noticed that your body is playing little tricks on you lately? If
you are a boy, you may have noticed your legs, face, arms, and chest are
becoming covered with thick, black hairs and your voice may be beginning to
sound like a phonograph needle ruining your favorite stack of platters....
