The Boy with the U. S. Weather Men Part 20

"Yes, boys," the Forecaster answered, "right here. There's a young chap I know who used to work with William A. Eddy, of New Jersey, the father of scientific kite-flying in this country. I wrote to young Osborne, and sent him a copy of the _Issaquena County Weather Review_, the one with the sunset articles and pictures in it."

"Osborne, sir!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed the editor-in-chief, "I got his subscription just a week ago."

"Did you?" said the Forecaster, interested. "That's nice of him! He wrote to me that he was constantly improving his kite models and that he had a couple of old ones which he now seldom flew. He sent me their records, too, so I know they must be good kites. He wanted to know if the Mississippi League of the Weather wouldn't do some kite-flying and send him records of the observations."

"Would we?" cried the enthusiastic Monroe. "I should say we would!"

"It means quite a bit of trouble," the weather expert warned them; "scientific kite-flying needs machinery."

"Why, sir?" asked Ross. "Can't we do it by hand?"

"No," was the reply, "you can't. How would you reel the kite home? It's a very different thing sending up a j.a.panese paper kite on a string a few hundred feet in the air, and making an ascent of a couple of miles with a weather kite. For one thing, the weather kite is flown with wire and an especially strong kind of wire at that."

"Where will we get the wire?"

"I've advanced the money for it," the Forecaster answered, "and for the shipment of the kites. I thought, perhaps, after a while, we might hold a kite contest and charge an admission fee, because, as you know, I think the League should be on a self-supporting basis. I'll render you a bill, then, and you can pay me."

"Thanks ever so much, sir," said Ross. "That's fine. We'll do it. But who's to have charge of the kite-flying?"

"That's your affair," the Forecaster answered. "I've nothing to do with the inner workings of the League."

"I've been wondering," said Anton, "if Tom oughtn't to do it. He's our wind expert."

Tom flushed with pleasure at the suggestion.

"I haven't done much on the wind stuff," he admitted; "there didn't seem anything to do but to take measurements and things."

"I seem to remember reading them weekly in the _Review_," the Forecaster remarked.

"Oh, I've done it all regularly enough, but it didn't seem to be of much use," the boy said.

"You'll find that it will be of a great deal of use in the League's kite work," the weather expert rejoined.

"I think Anton's right," put in Ross. "Hands up those who think Tom ought to do it."

Every hand shot up in the air.

Tom shuffled his feet on the ground and squirmed uneasily.

"All right," he said, "I'll try. You'll tell us what to do, Mr. Levin."

The next few weeks were busy ones for the Mississippi League of the Weather. The building of the kite reel, more than anything else, gave the boys a sense of the power of the new force that they were going to handle. The _Weather Review_ announced the expected arrival of the two kites, and the interest of the neighborhood was aroused.

Not since the days of the Civil War had anything given the farmers of the district as much to talk about as did the weekly issues of the _Issaquena County Weather Review_, and the people of the county took the keenest interest in all the doings of the League. Fred had been anxious to make the paper bigger and more important, as soon as it became flourishing, but he was held back in this by the conservative and laconic Bob. The wireless expert showed him that as long as the paper was kept small and easy to get out, it could be kept good. As a result, everything had to be condensed, and every bit of the little sheet was interesting. Twice the _Review_ was quoted in important meteorological journals and various weather periodicals were sent as exchanges to the office. It meant a lot of work for the editor-in-chief, but Fred's father, realizing that the post was an excellent training for his son, released him from all his Sat.u.r.day ch.o.r.es.

At last the word came that the kites had actually arrived. A farm wagon was sent in to fetch the wooden cases, and that wagon, when it drove into town, had every member of the League on board, all excited and chattering like so many magpies. Rex and La.s.sie, the pair of four-legged members of the League, also came along to give dignity to the occasion.

Permission had been secured from Tom's father to use part of the pasture as a kite-flying station, and, bright and early the next Sat.u.r.day, the League gathered at the wind-measurer's home to see the cases unpacked.

Mr. Levin also came, to give advice and suggestions.

"What's the direction of the wind, Tom?" he asked.

The boy glanced up at his home-made weather-vane, which had been adjusted so that it was right to the fraction of a degree.

"South-southeast, sir," he said.

"Is it steady or veering?" the weather expert continued. He was anxious that Tom should feel the importance of his wind observations. "What was it this morning?"

"I'll see, sir," said Tom, and hurried into the house for his book on wind observations, which he had kept faithfully, though, in all the five months of the League's work, there had been no opportunity to make use of them.

"It was south--a quarter--east this morning," he answered quite importantly.

"And what is the present velocity?" came the next query.

Tom ran up the short ladder to the dial of his Robinson anemometer or wind-measurer. This consisted of four cup-shaped pieces of metal fastened to four arms at right angles to each other, and set horizontally in a socket. The force of the wind on the open cup-shaped sides was so much stronger than on the convex or rounded sides that the anemometer whirled around quite rapidly.

"Say," said one of the boys as he watched Tom, "I didn't know he had all this down so pat! It's great!"

"Fourteen miles an hour, sir," said Tom, as he ran down the ladder, "by the anemometer dial."

"Well," the Forecaster replied, "fourteen miles an hour is a good enough breeze for kite-flying. How about it, boys? Shall we try a flight to-day?"

"Oh, let's!" the boys exclaimed.

"Very well," said the Forecaster, "we'll put the kites together. Have any of you ever seen a weather kite?" he queried.

"I've seen a picture of one, sir," said Fred. "I saw it in one of the Weather Bureau booklets. It looked like a box with the ends knocked out.

Are these like that?"

"Yes," the weather expert replied, "all over the world the Hargrave or box kite is used. There's a little difference in the methods of bracing the frames, but the principle of them all is the same."

"Are they the best kites for lifting, sir?" asked Anton. "I saw a picture, once, of a man being carried along the ground by a kite, but it didn't look like this. It was like a lot of little triangles all piled one on top of the other."

"That's a different kind," the Forecaster answered, "it's called a tetrahedral kite, and was invented by Dr. Alexander Graham Bell. They will lift a man quite easily. Owing to the form of construction, they're much heavier and harder to handle and they won't go up as high. The box kites fly higher and more easily. They'll go up even in the lightest wind, and that's quite important, boys, because you must remember that sometimes there's quite a strong wind in the upper layers of the air when there's only a zephyr below. As you see, boys, this kite consists simply of four long sticks arranged in a square, with one third of the length at either end covered with a specially treated and tightly stretched muslin."

He was working rapidly as he talked, and, before long the kite was a.s.sembled, the wire attached and wound on the reel and all was ready for launching.

"Will that wire hold it, sir?" asked Ross, as he noted the extremely fine line that the Forecaster was using.

"Certainly, it's piano wire. It's only a thirty-second part of an inch in diameter, but it will stand a pull of nearly three hundred pounds.

That's more than you could pull. More even than Monroe could pull, and he's the strongest of you."

"Couldn't I hold one of those small kites, sir?" asked Monroe.

"Yes," the Forecaster said, "you could with a well-made hand reel, and if the wind wasn't too strong. But your arms would soon give out. Of course, the pull of a kite depends on the amount of square feet of sail area. Anton," he added, turning to the crippled lad, "you're the mathematician of the League, measure that kite and tell us how many square feet of sail area it has."

Anton took a foot rule from his pocket and measured the kite rapidly.