The Boy with the U. S. Weather Men Part 18

The sunset pictures made a better showing as lithographs than even their young creator could have hoped, and the _Issaquena County Weather Review_ became a source of personal pride to every one in the neighborhood. The farmers and planters vied with each other in giving information of weather happenings and the little publication was never short of "copy."

"Dan'l," said Fred to his chief a.s.sistant, one day, "I'm going to print an article on 'Weather Superst.i.tions.'"

"Yas, suh," said the darky, wondering what was coming.

"And you're going to write it."

"Ah write it? Sho', now, you'se jokin', Mistah Fred. Ah can't even write my own name."

"I know that. You don't need to write, Dan'l. You're going to collect every rhyme and proverb and saying about the weather you can hunt up in the neighborhood. Get Mammy Crockett to tell you all she knows. Then you must repeat it to me. I'll write it down word for word, and it'll be your article."

"If yo' wrote it down, it wouldn't be mine," objected Dan'l.

"Oh, yes, it would," the editor-in-chief a.s.sured him, "some of the greatest authors in the world dictate their books."

So Dan'l went all around the neighborhood, announcing that he was a "sho' enough autho' now," and so full of delight that there was no holding him in at all. He proved a good collector of superst.i.tions, moreover, and when at last the article came out in the _Review_, it was so complete and so original that it was reprinted in one of the big Folk-Lore Magazines.

The visit of the journeyman printer had been of great value. Fred had been shown just how the work should be done and his pride was involved in keeping the paper up to the standard. Moreover, the Irishman had secured a large box of discarded type from a printing firm in Vicksburg, and had forwarded this to the boys. Fred returned the courtesy by mailing Mike a copy of the _Review_ regularly, and Mike occasionally sent a package of the printing trade magazines that he found lying around the shop. Fred picked up many hints from these and thus secured quite a good start in his knowledge of the printing trade.

The "official photographer" had been equally successful. One day, while up on the levee trying to take a satisfactory picture of an elusive "mackerel sky," which was changing from moment to moment, he met a stranger. This stranger was sitting on a log that projected into the river, holding a rod and line, and landing fish with an accustomed skill.

"What in blazes are you trying to photograph?" he said after a while, as he watched the lad focussing his camera earthwards on what looked like a piece of black gla.s.s, which projected from the stand.

"Clouds, sir," answered Ralph.

"When I try to photograph clouds I look at the sky, not on the ground,"

the stranger remarked. "What's that contrivance you've got on your camera stand, anyway?"

"It's just a broken piece of looking gla.s.s," said the boy, "but I painted it on the back with black enamel."

"What for?"

"So that I could get at the clouds easier, sir," the boy replied. "I read how to do that in a book I've got."

"I don't see why black gla.s.s should make any difference," said the fisherman, getting up from the log and coming over to where the boy was standing.

"It does, sir. If you look on the gla.s.s," said Ralph, "you'll see. The clouds are ever so much sharper."

The stranger looked in. Even the fleecy white clouds, scarcely visible in the blue sky overhead, stood out a clear white against the blackness of the mirror. The blue sky was not reflected in the gla.s.s.

"That's queer," said the stranger, "the blue hardly shows at all. I wonder why?"

"It said in the book," Ralph explained, "that the blue didn't show up so much because it was partly polarized. I couldn't quite understand what that meant. As far as I could make out, the blue color of the sky is due to waves that are scattered sideways instead of coming straight down like the white light does."

"I suppose it is polarized," said the fisherman, "but it hadn't ever occurred to me that the sky wouldn't be reflected in a black mirror.

You're right, though. The clouds do stand out well! You ought to be able to get some good pictures from your mirror."

"I have got a lot, sir," said Ralph. "I've made three cloud photographs every day, rain or shine, for over two months now."

"Every day?"

"Yes, sir, before breakfast, after dinner, and just before I begin my evening ch.o.r.es."

"What's the idea of that?"

Finding a ready listener, Ralph plunged into the story of the Mississippi Weather League and of his crippled friend, Anton.

"It's a mighty useful piece of work," the fisherman commented, when the lad had finished, "and I'm especially interested in these cloud photographs of yours. I need some. Have you any prints of them?"

"Yes, sir," was the reply, "heaps."

"If they're really any good, I might be able to use a few," the fisherman continued. "I'm writing a series of articles for an outdoor magazine and I want some Mississippi River pictures pretty badly. Mine haven't come out particularly well."

"I'll show you all I've got," eagerly replied Ralph, and, a little later, he took the stranger home with him.

There he displayed, not only his cloud photographs, but also all the snap-shots he had made with his camera during the three years he had owned it. The magazine writer was highly delighted, for many of the pictures were exactly what he needed, and when he went away he took with him thirty photographs, for which he paid Ralph, as he said, the "regular price" of three dollars apiece.

"That's what they'd have to pay if they bought them from any of the news photo houses," he remarked, "and you might as well get the same."

To Ralph this ninety dollars was a fortune. He offered to turn the entire sum over to the League, or at least that part of it which had been paid for the cloud photographs. Ross vetoed this offer, on the ground that the League itself had not earned the money. Instead, Ralph put away some of the cash and with the rest he bought a new lens for his camera. With this lens he was able to take cloud pictures even better than his former ones.

A few weeks later, at the next Monthly Feast of the League, Ralph came proudly forward with a collection of over one hundred cloud photographs.

"I don't see, fellows," he said, "why we all couldn't have a shot at observing the clouds. I was talking to Anton the other day, and he didn't seem to know anything about the names of the clouds at all. I dug 'em up from a book I've got at home. I was thinking that it would be rather jolly if each member of the League had a set of cloud photographs for himself, with the right names of the clouds and all that sort of thing on the back. It isn't much trouble to make prints."

"I'd like to have a set, Ralph," said Ross promptly. "I hate to feel like a dub and not know about the clouds. It's like not knowing any of the stars."

"There certainly ought to be a set in the office of the _Review_,"

declared its editor-in-chief.

"I've been wondering," began Anton, "whether Mr. Levin wouldn't pick out the best ones and tell us exactly what they are. I had an awful job trying to get Ralph to bring his pictures to-day; he said he wanted to wait until he had perfect ones."

"You'll wait a long time, my boy," the Forecaster put in, "if you wait until you have a perfect set. I don't know of such a set anywhere in the world. Clayden, in England, has got some fine examples--"

"It's his book I've got," interrupted Ralph.

"There are a few good pictures in that," the weather expert said.

"Loisel, in France, has some good examples and our own Weather Bureau has done quite a little cloud work. But those I've seen of yours, Ralph, are quite good. If you like, I'll go over them for you and pick out the ones that are the most characteristic. Your plan to give a set to each of the boys is quite worth while. Let's see the pictures, Ralph."

The "official photographer" pulled out, from a bulging inside pocket, a large bundle of photographic prints and spread them on the table. The collection included both the pictures Ralph had taken with his new lens and some of the old ones intensified in the way that his visitor had showed him. They made a striking contrast, in their vivid black and white, to the cloud pictures, printed in a pale blue, issued by the Weather Bureau.

"I think Ralph's pictures are away ahead of the Weather Bureau ones,"

declared Fred.

The Forecaster shook his head.

"Some of them are prettier pictures," he said, "but the Weather Bureau sheet is chosen to help observers cla.s.sify the clouds. If you notice that blue sheet of cloud forms that Washington has issued, you'll notice that they are very carefully selected and that you really can tell the various types of cloud from them. At the same time, clouds are hard to cla.s.sify, because, at any given time, you're looking at a stretch of sky--counting the separate layers of cloud--several hundred square miles in extent, and, generally, there are many different types of cloud in the sky at the same time."

"How many kinds of clouds does the Weather Bureau name?" asked Anton.