The Boy with the U. S. Weather Men Part 12

"It is. It was used on some of the earliest American coins. Last century, in London, one of the courts of justice, known as the Inner Temple, gave an order to a sun-dial maker to put up a dial. He asked for a motto, and was told to come the next day for it. Next day it was not ready, nor the day after. Still the dial-maker persisted. At last, one day, in making his request, he interrupted an important meeting, and the chairman turned to him quite impatiently and said:

"'Sirrah! Begone about your business!'

"'A very good motto,' said the dial-maker, not realizing that the command was meant personally for him, and he engraved the words on the dial. When the lawyers of the Inner Temple saw the motto, they agreed that nothing could be better, though it had never been intended.

"When our first coinage was discussed, Benjamin Franklin was on the committee and he suggested that a sun-dial should be used. As, however, the coinage would go to the people instead of the people going to the sun-dial, he suggested the old motto with a change. This motto read:

"'Mind Your Business!'"

"That's good, too," exclaimed Anton.

"Very good. So that phrase was engraved on the American coinage, and on some money that was issued by the State of New York, over a century ago.

You could use whichever motto you liked best."

"I'll use the American one!" declared Anton enthusiastically. "I've a lot of those marbles. I'm going right off now to see if I haven't enough."

He shifted his crutch to a more comfortable position under his arms and pegged across the yard to the house as hard as he could go.

"I've noticed," said the Forecaster, as he looked after the limping boy, "that Anton seems a lot happier since the flood. He used to be such a mournful little fellow."

"It's this weather work you started him on," the boy answered. "It means a lot to him."

"Ross," said the Weather expert, "I've been thinking a good deal about Anton and about all the rest of you boys in this neighborhood. Issaquena county is over ninety per cent colored and there aren't very many of you white boys, but the dozen or so that are here seem to me to be mighty good American stuff."

"They're a dandy lot," Ross agreed.

"Have any of you boys thought at all about what's going to happen to Anton, when he grows up? His father hasn't money enough to send him to college, or anything like that, especially since he lost so much by the flood, and, being a cripple, Anton's not going to have much of a chance on the plantation."

"I hadn't thought of it," Ross answered, "but it does seem as if he were up against it, doesn't it?"

"Why don't you boys make it easy for him?"

"How, Mr. Levin? We would in a minute, any of us. Everybody likes Anton."

"Look here," said the Weather Man, putting his hand on Ross's shoulder, "I know from experience that when you suggest something worth doing to a bunch of American boys, they're mighty apt to go ahead with it. Now, as you said yourself, Anton seems to have a real interest in these weather observations. His father tells me he's never two minutes late in taking them. Making this sun-dial is another example of the same thing.

What I'm thinking is this--why couldn't Anton be taken in hand and taught to fit himself for the Weather Bureau? I'll teach him mathematics as my share, but you boys will have to do your bit."

"What could we do?"

"Suppose--of course, without letting Anton know why you're doing it--suppose you boys got together and took up this weather plan as a sort of outdoor club. You could meet here at Anton's place. If all his chums were interested and having a natural earnestness, I'm sure he'd work like fury at it. It would give him a real chance, and, what's more, I believe you chaps would like doing it."

"Make a Weather Bureau of our own, Mr. Levin? I think it would be great!"

"I think myself that you'd get a lot of fun out of it," said the Forecaster, "but the real idea is that you'd be helping Anton, yes, helping him more even than when you rescued him from the drifting house during the flood, because you'd be giving him a start in life. It's a piece of work that's worth the doing, Ross."

"It's a bully scheme, sir," agreed the boy, waving his hand to another lad who was coming up the road. "I'm game to do all I can."

"You'll have a good deal to do," the Weather Man warned him. "I know you're practically the leader of the neighborhood and the boys follow you. I've spoken to a few of the fellows and asked them to meet me here this afternoon, but I wanted to see you first. I've just come from your house and they said you were over here. It's got to be a boys' deal, through and through."

Ross thought for a moment.

"You said, sir, we oughtn't to let Anton know. I think, perhaps, we ought to keep it dark. But I'd like to talk to Bob Portlett about it, if you don't mind. He doesn't talk much, but the chaps put a lot of stock in what he says. Bob and I are pretty thick, you know."

"Of course, talk things over with him. I spoke to him about it yesterday. You two go into executive session, while I go up to the house a minute."

He nodded to Bob and strode off across the yard.

"Levin been talking to you about Anton, Bob?" Ross asked, as soon as the Forecaster was out of hearing.

"Yes," answered Bob, in his abrupt way. "He said you knew all about it."

"He only sprung it on me just a few minutes ago," Ross rejoined, "but I think it's a dandy idea," and he proceeded to relate to his friend the outline of the plan. When he had finished, Bob nodded his head.

"Count me in," he said, "I'll do anything for Anton."

"What'll you do?"

"Wireless," was the brief reply.

"What's that got to do with weather?"

"A lot. I got my new big sending apparatus yesterday and I've got a transmitting license."

"Have you?" said Ross in surprise. "I thought they were so awfully hard to get. Don't you have to pa.s.s an examination, or something?"

"Yes. I pa.s.sed it. I've still got the small apparatus I used to have, the one you know. I'll give that to Anton, teach him to work it. He can send me his observations and I'll transmit. I've a lot of amateur stations on my string. How's that?"

"Fine!" declared Ross enthusiastically, "it would keep the observations up to scratch if the chaps knew they were going to be used. Who else do you think would join in?"

One by one the two lads discussed the other boys in the neighborhood.

Meanwhile, many of them had arrived and were cl.u.s.tering around Mr. Levin and Anton, asking innumerable questions about the new sun-dial. Dan'l was giving out information freely, and one of the puppies had taken exception to the whitewash line and was barking at it with high puppy-toned barks. Presently Ross caught the Forecaster's eye, and came over and joined the group.

"I've just been telling the fellows, Ross," said the Weather Man, speaking as though the lad knew nothing about it, "that we've a good chance in this county to give a hand to the Weather Bureau. I'm out of the work, now, of course, but my heart's in it yet, and I'd like to see Issaquena County put on the map. We haven't got an observer's station in the entire county. Weather's the most important thing in the world and we've only just begun to learn how wonderful it is.

"Every one of you boys has seen what it means when the Mississippi gets in flood, and most of you could guess what would have happened last spring if the Weather Bureau hadn't given any warnings. As it was, n.o.body was drowned, all the way down the river. In the Johnstown Flood, just because it was a case in which no warning could be given, over two thousand people were killed.

"Think of it, boys, if we could get together and map out the weather in every square mile of this county, we could make this district the best kept and most famous meteorological centre in the world!

"I know, sometimes, it seems as if we were a good deal out of things, here. There's not a town of any size in the county, one day's a good deal like another, and we're apt to think of places like New York, Chicago, New Orleans and San Francisco as being the fighting centres of the nation's life.

"Yet, right here, right over our heads, the never-ending battle of the weather goes on, with its brigades of warring clouds, its wind-cavalry and its artillery of storm. The sky holds more secrets than the city does and there's a lot of adventurous work to be done. Which of you is game to do it? Who'll volunteer?"

An excited babble of answers greeted him.

"I will, Mr. Levin!" cried one.

"Sure!" said another.

"Put me down for it," proclaimed a third, voicing the general sentiment.