{"collection":"folklore-oral-tradition","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/wikisource_What_They_Say_in_New_England_Odds/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/wikisource_What_They_Say_in_New_England_Odds","id":"wikisource_What_They_Say_in_New_England_Odds","license":"Public Domain / CC-BY-SA (see source)","rights_basis":"wikisource_site_inclusion_policy","source":"wikisource","source_url":"https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/What_They_Say_in_New_England/Odds","summary":null,"tags":["Subpages"],"text":"Odds\n\n. .\n\nTo cut the finger-nails on Sunday morning is a sign you will do something you are ashamed of before the week is out.\n\nAn old rhyme has it:\u2014\n\nIt is better you were never born,\n\nThan on the Sabbath pare hair or horn.\n\nThere is a finger-nail jingle for the days of the week:\u2014\n\nCut them on Monday, cut them for wealth,\n\nCut them on Tuesday, cut them for health,\n\nCut them on Wednesday, cut them for news,\n\nCut them on Thursday, a new pair of shoes,\n\nCut them on Friday, cut them for woe,\n\nCut them on Saturday, a journey to go,\n\nCut them on Sunday, cut them for evil,\n\nAnd be all the week as cross as the Devil.\n\nWhistle to keep your courage up. In particular it is well to whistle when in the night you have to go along a lonely roadway.\nFormerly many people were afraid to pass a graveyard after nightfall for fear of seeing ghosts. This fearsome feeling has not entirely faded out even yet.\n\nWhen the Devil comes among humankind, he is fondest of taking the form of a black cat, but at times a black dog suits his purposes better. It is said, too, that he is pleased on occasion to exhibit himself in the shape of a black pig on the ridgepole of a house.\n\nProfessor Charles Eliot Norton remembers that when he was a boy he, with some companions, met a woman whom the others told him was a witch. They said that if a knife was stuck in one of her footprints it would make her turn and look back. One of the boys got out his knife, and thrust the blade into one of the woman\u2019s footprints. The little company turned their eyes half fearfully toward the witch\u2019s receding figure; but for some reason or other she failed to look around.\n\nPass me salt, pass me sorrow.\n\nIt used to be taken as a pretty sure sign that a man was conceited if he went about with his hat-brim turned up in front.\n\nTo use the side of the thimble instead of the tip to push the needle with is the sign of a good sewer.\n\nIt is well to have a piece of a branch cut from a mountain-ash in the house. It is as good to keep out witches as a horseshoe nailed over the door.\n\nWhen a house burns, and another is built on the same spot, that, too, will burn soon.\n\nJust so many stitches as you take on you,\n\nJust so many lies you\u2019ll have told about you.\n\nTo \u201ctake stitches on you\u201d is to repair a garment that you are wearing at the time you do the sewing,\n\nAlways pick up a pin with its head toward you; for that will insure your having a ride soon,\n\nWhen you churn, turn the crank straight forwards all the time. If you turn it backwards, you will undo your work and soon bring the contents of the churn back to cream again.\n\nWet your finger and hold it above your head, and it will show you which way the wind blows. It will feel coolest, and will dry quickest, on the side whence the wind comes.\n\nIf you wipe at the same time on the same towel with another person, it is a sign you two will quarrel.\n\n\u201cI don\u2019t believe half of these things they say are true.\u201d\n\nIf you have a scratch on the back of your hand, and it points toward your thumb, it is a sign you are going to have a ride. If the scratch is a long one, the ride will be long; if short, the tide will be short.\n\nAlso:\u2014\n\nNearer the thumb,\n\nSooner it\u2019ll come.\n\nIf the bottom of your foot itches, you may know that you are to step on strange lands.\n\nWhen a spark forms on the end of the wick in the candle-flame, moisten the tip of your finger with your tongue, touch the spark lightly with it, and if it adheres to your finger, you can confidently look for a letter within a day or two.\n\nIf you put on both stocking and shoe on one foot before putting on the stocking on the other foot, it is the sign that you are to meet with an accident.\n\nSing before breakfast, cry before supper.\n\nIf your nose itches; you may know that you are going to quarrel. Others have it that this is a sign you are going to get mad.\n\nPull out a hair, touch it with the fame of a match, and if it curls up quickly it is a sign you are cross in your disposition. Instead of using fire, you can, if you choose, pull the hair between a finger and the thumb nail to discover whether it will curl up quickly or not,\n\nPull out a gray hair, and ten or twelve will come in its place.\n\nIf you pull one of your fingers, and the joint cracks, it is a sign you have told a lie.\n\nBroad finger-nails indicate generosity. Long finger-nails indicate a lack of thrift.\n\nIf you go out visiting on Monday, it is a sign you will go out visiting every day that week.\n\nOn the inner side of a horse\u2019s legs is a horny scab about the size of a dollar. It used to be said that flakes from this made excellent bait for fishing.\n\nA sore on the tip of the tongue is a sign you have told a lie.\n\nIf a person\u2019s front teeth are far apart, it is a sign that person is going to be a wanderer.\n\nPut the wrong foot out of bed first when you get up in the morning, and you will be cross all day. Always get up right foot foremost.\n\nIf you take hold of a chair, and twist it about on one leg, it is a sign you are going to quarrel.\n\nWhen we have one fire in town, there\u2019s always three in a short time.\n\nWash and wipe together,\n\nLive in peace forever.\n\nBright red auroras were formerly said to be the sign that a great battle had been fought, or was soon to be fought. Its flaming streamers betokened blood and slaughter. There was this fiery omen in the sky at the time of the battle of Bunker Hill, and other contests of the Revolution, as well as of the older French and Indian wars.\n\nOften when two persons make a bargain they at its conclusion \u201cShake hands on it\u201d to make it binding.\n\nWhen you get up in the morning be sure to dress your right foot first. If you don\u2019t, you will meet with a disappointment that day.\n\nWhen a girl asked her mother on which side she should make the buttonholes in a garment she was making, the mother would respond, \u201cAlways make them on the left side. Remember this, that you don\u2019t want to be on the buttonhole side of heaven, and you won't have to ask again.\u201d This refers to the parable wherein the goats were divided from the sheep, and went to the left of the throne.\n\nIn haying time, if you can \u201cstep your shadow,\u201d it is noon. This means that you must be able to step on the shadow of your head. You cannot do this in northern countries except on summer noons when shadows are short.\n\nStep over the graves in the cemetery er go around them. If you walk on them, woe will come to you in some form.\n\nIf you eat crumbs \u2018twill make you wise,\n\nIf you leave the crust\n\nYou\u2019re sure to bust.\n\nThis is schoolboy poetry recited to a mate who, in eating his lunch, throws away the crust.\n\n\u201cThere\u2019s a good deal of pizen in people, especially in red-headed men. All folks hev some, but there\u2019s more pizen in a red-headed man than in a man that has black hair\u2014a good deal. In London, a red-headed man that was a sailor sold himself to a doctor fer quite a sum of money.\n\n\u201cThe doctor strung him up by his heels, and put a toad at his mouth; and the man died, and a great lot of green, nasty-looking pizen oozed out that the doctor said was very valuable.\u201d\n\nDrop a dish of victuals, and you will hear bad news.\n\nGrass will not grow under a \u201cgallus\u201d where a man has been hung.\n\nSneeze on Monday, sneeze for danger,\n\nSneeze on Tuesday, kiss a stranger,\n\nSneeze on Wednesday, sneeze for a letter,\n\nSneeze on Thursday, for something better,\n\nSneeze on Friday, sneeze for sorrow,\n\nSneeze on Saturday, see your sweetheart to-morrow,\n\nSneeze on Sunday, your safely seek,\n\nThe Devil\u2019ll have you the rest of the week\n\nWhen a child gets dizzy whirling, he needs only to whirl in the opposite direction to turn himself back to stability.\nWhen you comb your hair, don\u2019t burn such as gathers on your comb. If you do, it will make you cross.\n\nDon\u2019t have any metal about you when there is a thunder-storm. It will draw the lightning, and you will like enough get struck. The boys who understand this take care not to have a jacknife or any such thing on their persons in thunder-storms, and some women when they hear the storm\u2019s muttering approach take off their rings, hide the scissors, and cover the sewing-machine. There are those who shut the blinds, and draw the curtains to keep out sight and sound, and then lie down on a feather bed to wait for the storm to pass.\n\nIf the back of your legs itch, you may know that you are to go on a long journey.\n\nWhen you play hi-spy, and are \u201cit,\u201d and want to know where the others have hid, take a stick and put it up on end and let it fall. If it falls three times in the same direction, that shows you the way to go to find the hiders.\n\nAfter you have had a tooth pulled out, don\u2019t touch the cavity with your tongue, and the next tooth that comes will be a gold tooth.\n\nWhen you move to a new house always send beforehand a loaf of bread and a new broom.\n\nSneeze early and you will hear some news, or get a present that same day.\n\nButton your coat wrong, or draw on a stocking inside out, and matters will go crooked that day.\n\nRock an empty cradle, and you will injure the child that usually sleeps in it.\n\nWhen, in pitching up hay, your fork gets caught and taken up on the load, you have lost a day\u2019s work. That is, your work won\u2019t amount to anything that day, or else you'll never get any pay for it.\n\nDrop your hoe or your rake, and you will likewise lose a day's work.\n\nTalk to yourself, and you talk to the Devil.\n\nIf the basting-threads are in a garment, that is a sign it is not paid for.\n\nIt is a sign a man\u2019s clothes are not paid for if the little size cards are still on them.\n\nIt is a good sign to take out your work; that is, if you have to pull out your stitches because you have made a mistake. It proves that you will live to wear the garment out.\n\nDo you want to know whether you love butter or not? Get some one to hold a buttercup under your chin. If they can see a yellow reflection from its burnished petals on your chin, then you do love butter. If not, you don\u2019t.\n\nStumpy fingers are a sign that one must work for a living.\n\nYou can get a hundred dollars for a million old postage-stamps. I never heard that any one got that many, nor can I find out who is going to pay the hundred dollars, but a good many young people in the cities have made up their minds to collect the million stamps. They are most successful when they or their friends can pick over the letters that come to offices or stores. I suppose if one could average a hundred stamps every week-day the year through, he would be doing pretty well. At that rate, if the collector persevered, he would get his million stamps in about thirty years. If he spent ten minutes a day soaking off, drying, and caring for the stamps, he would in that length of time put in three hundred full days of ten hours each. When he received his hundred dollars, he would therefore be paid for his time at the rate of thirty-three and one-third cents a day.\n\nWhen the bars of the northern lights shoot up in a cone shape, like guns stacked, that is a sure sign of war.\n\nIf you want the cake you make to be light, stir the batter only one way.\n\nHemlock-trees attract lightning, It is said that you need put no lightning-rods on your buildings if you will only set up a tall hemlock pole near them. The lightning will hit that pole, rather than the buildings, every time.\n\nAll sound-minded people have the largest half of their heads in front of their ears. A man with the heaviest part of his head back of his ears you may be pretty sure is an idiot.\n\nSleep before midnight is \u201cbeauty sleep.\u201d Therefore if you wish to be handsome go to bed early.","title":"What They Say in New England/Odds","tradition":"folklore-oral-tradition","translated_text":null,"word_count":2261}