“But,” says Cap'n Jonadab and me together, jest as if we was “reading in
concert” same as the youngsters do in school, “but,” we says, “will it
work? Will anybody pay for it?”
“Work?” says Peter T., with his fingers in the arm-holes of the
double-breasted danger-signal that he called a vest, and with his cigar
tilted up till you'd think 'twould set his hat-brim afire. “Work?” says
he. “Well, maybe 'twouldn't work if the ordinary brand of canned
lobster was running it, but with ME to jerk the lever and sound the loud
timbrel--why, say! it's like stealing money from a blind cripple that's
hard of hearing.”
“Yes, I know,” says Cap'n Jonadab. “But this ain't like starting the Old
Home House. That was opening up a brand-new kind of hotel that nobody
ever heard of before. This is peddling weather prophecies when there's
the Gov'ment Weather Bureau running opposition--not to mention the Old
Farmer's Almanac, and I don't know how many more,” he says.
Brown took his patent leathers down off the rail of the piazza, give the
ashes of his cigar a flip--he knocked 'em into my hat that was on the
floor side of his chair, but he was too excited to mind--and he says:
“Confound it, man!” he says. “You can throw more cold water than a
fire-engine. Old Farmer's Almanac! This isn't any 'About this time
look out for snow' business. And it ain't any Washington cold slaw like
'Weather for New England and Rocky Mountains, Tuesday to Friday; cold to
warm; well done on the edges with a rare streak in the middle, preceded
or followed by rain, snow, or clearing. Wind, north to south, varying
east and west.' No siree! this is TO-DAY'S weather for Cape Cod, served
right off the griddle on a hot plate, and cooked by the chef at that.
You don't realize what a regular dime-museum wonder that feller is,” he
says.
Well, I suppose we didn't. You see, Jonadab and me, like the rest of the
folks around Wellmouth, had come to take Beriah Crocker and his weather
notions as the regular thing, like baked beans on a Saturday night.
Beriah, he--
But there! I've been sailing stern first. Let's get her headed right, if
we ever expect to turn the first mark. You see, 'twas this way:
'Twas in the early part of May follering the year that the “Old Home
House” was opened. We'd had the place all painted up, decks holy-stoned,
bunks overhauled, and one thing or 'nother, and the “Old Home” was all
taut and shipshape, ready for the crew--boarders, I mean. Passages was
booked all through the summer and it looked as if our second season
would be better'n our first.
Then the Dillaway girl--she was christened Lobelia, like her mother,
but she'd painted it out and cruised under the name of Belle since the
family got rich--she thought 'twould be nice to have what she called a
“spring house-party” for her particular friends 'fore the regular season
opened. So Peter--he being engaged at the time and consequent in that
condition where he'd have put on horns and “mooed” if she'd give the
order--he thought 'twould be nice, too, and for a week it was “all hands
on deck!” getting ready for the “house-party.”
Two days afore the thing was to go off the ways Brown gets a letter from
Belle, and in it says she's invited a whole lot of folks from Chicago
and New York and Boston and the land knows where, and that they've never
been to the Cape and she wants to show 'em what a “quaint” place it
is. “Can't you get,” says she, “two or three delightful, queer, old
'longshore characters to be at work 'round the hotel? It'll give such a
touch of local color,” she says.
So out comes Peter with the letter.
“Barzilla,” he says to me, “I want some characters. Know anybody that's
a character?”
“Well,” says I, “there's Nate Slocum over to Orham. He'd steal anything
that wa'n't spiked down. He's about the toughest character I can think
of, offhand, this way.”
“Oh, thunder!” says Brown. “I don't want a crook; that wouldn't be any
novelty to THIS crowd,” he says. “What I'm after is an odd stick;
a feller with pigeons in his loft. Not a lunatic, but jest a queer
genius--little queerer than you and the Cap'n here.”
After a while we got his drift, and I happened to think of Beriah and
his chum, Eben Cobb. They lived in a little shanty over to Skakit P'int
and got their living lobstering, and so on. Both of 'em had saved a few
thousand dollars, but you couldn't get a cent of it without giving 'em
ether, and they'd rather live like Portugees than white men any day,
unless they was paid to change. Beriah's pet idee was foretelling what
the weather was going to be. And he could do it, too, better'n anybody
I ever see. He'd smell a storm further'n a cat can smell fish, and he
hardly ever made a mistake. Prided himself on it, you understand, like a
boy does on his first long pants. His prophecies was his idols, so's
to speak, and you couldn't have hired him to foretell what he knew was
wrong, not for no money.
Peter said Beriah and Eben was just the sort of “cards” he was looking
for and drove right over to see 'em. He hooked 'em, too. I knew he
would; he could talk a Come-Outer into believing that a Unitarian wasn't
booked for Tophet, if he set out to.
So the special train from Boston brought the “house-party” down, and our
two-seated buggy brought Beriah and Eben over. They didn't have anything
to do but to look “picturesque” and say “I snum!” and “I swan to man!”
and they could do that to the skipper's taste. The city folks thought
they was “just too dear and odd for anything,” and made 'em bigger fools
than ever, which wa'n't necessary.
The second day of the “party” was to be a sailing trip clear down to the
life-saving station on Setuckit Beach. It certainly looked as if 'twas
going to storm, and the Gov'ment predictions said it was, but Beriah
said “No,” and stuck out that 'twould clear up by and by. Peter wanted
to know what I thought about their starting, and I told him that 'twas
my experience that where weather was concerned Beriah was a good, safe
anchorage. So they sailed away, and, sure enough, it cleared up fine.
And the next day the Gov'ment fellers said “clear” and Beriah said
“rain,” and she poured a flood. And, after three or four of such
experiences, Beriah was all hunky with the “house-party,” and they
looked at him as a sort of wonderful freak, like a two-headed calf or
the “snake child,” or some such outrage.
So, when the party was over, 'round comes Peter, busting with a new
notion. What he cal'lated to do was to start a weather prophesying
bureau all on his own hook, with Beriah for prophet, and him for manager
and general advertiser, and Jonadab and me to help put up the money
to get her going. He argued that summer folks from Scituate to
Provincetown, on both sides of the Cape, would pay good prices for the
real thing in weather predictions. The Gov'ment bureau, so he said,
covered too much ground, but Beriah was local and hit her right on the
head. His idee was to send Beriah's predictions by telegraph to agents
in every Cape town each morning, and the agents was to hand 'em to
susscribers. First week a free trial; after that, so much per prophecy.
And it worked--oh, land, yes! it worked. Peter's letters and circulars
would satisfy anybody that black was white, and the free trial was a
sure bait. I don't know why 'tis, but if you offered the smallpox free,
there'd be a barrel of victims waiting in line to come down with it.
Brown rigged up a little shanty on the bluff in front of the “Old Home,”
and filled it full of barometers and thermometers and chronometers and
charts, and put Beriah and Eben inside to look wise and make b'lieve do
something. That was the office of “The South Shore Weather Bureau,” and
'twas sort of sacred and holy, and 'twould kill you to see the boarders
tip-toeing up and peeking in the winder to watch them two old coots
squinting through a telescope at the sky or scribbling rubbish on paper.
And Beriah was right 'most every time. I don't know why--my notion
is that he was born that way, same as some folks are born lightning
calculators--but I'll never forget the first time Peter asked him how he
done it.
“Wall,” drawls Beriah, “now to-day looks fine and clear, don't it? But
last night my left elbow had rheumatiz in it, and this morning my bones
ache, and my right toe-j'int is sore, so I know we'll have an easterly
wind and rain this evening. If it had been my left toe now, why--”
Peter held up both hands.
“That'll do,” he says. “I ain't asking any more questions. ONLY, if the
boarders or outsiders ask you how you work it, you cut out the bones
and toe business and talk science and temperature to beat the cars.
Understand, do you? It's science or no eight-fifty in the pay envelope.
Left toe-joint!” And he goes off grinning.
We had to have Eben, though he wasn't wuth a green hand's wages as a
prophet. But him and Beriah stuck by each other like two flies in the
glue-pot, and you couldn't hire one without t'other. Peter said
'twas all right--two prophets looked better'n one, anyhow; and, as
subscriptions kept up pretty well, and the Bureau paid a fair profit,
Jonadab and me didn't kick.
In July, Mrs. Freeman--she had charge of the upper decks in the “Old
Home” and was rated head chambermaid--up and quit, and being as we
couldn't get another capable Cape Codder just then, Peter fetched down
a woman from New York; one that a friend of old Dillaway's recommended.
She was able seaman so far's the work was concerned, but she'd been
good-looking once and couldn't forget it, and she was one of them
clippers that ain't happy unless they've got a man in tow. You know the
kind: pretty nigh old enough to be a coal-barge, but all rigged up with
bunting and frills like a yacht.
Her name was Kelly, Emma Kelly, and she was a widow--whether from choice
or act of Providence I don't know. The other women servants was all down
on her, of course, 'cause she had city ways and a style of wearing
her togs that made their Sunday gowns and bonnets look like distress
signals. But they couldn't deny that she was a driver so far's her work
was concerned. She'd whoop through the hotel like a no'theaster and have
everything done, and done well, by two o'clock in the afternoon. Then
she'd be ready to dress up and go on parade to astonish the natives.
Men--except the boarders, of course--was scarce around Wellmouth Port.
First the Kelly lady begun to flag Cap'n Jonadab and me, but we sheered
off and took to the offing. Jonadab, being a widower, had had his
experience, and I never had the marrying disease and wasn't hankering
to catch it. So Emma had to look for other victims, and the prophet-shop
looked to her like the most likely feeding-ground.
And, would you b'lieve it, them two old critters, Beriah and Eben,
gobbled the bait like sculpins. If she'd been a woman like the kind they
was used to--the Cape kind, I mean--I don't s'pose they'd have paid any
attention to her; but she was diff'rent from anything they'd ever run
up against, and the first thing you know, she had 'em both poke-hooked.
'Twas all in fun on her part first along, I cal'late, but pretty soon
some idiot let out that both of 'em was wuth money, and then the race
was on in earnest.
She'd drop in at the weather-factory 'long in the afternoon and pretend
to be terrible interested in the goings on there.
“I don't see how you two gentlemen CAN tell whether it's going to rain
or not. I think you are the most WONDERFUL men! Do tell me, Mr. Crocker,
will it be good weather to-morrer? I wanted to take a little walk up to
the village about four o'clock if it was.”
And then Beriah'd swell out like a puffing pig and put on airs and look
out of the winder, and crow:
“Yes'm, I jedge that we'll have a southerly breeze in the morning
with some fog, but nothing to last, nothing to last. The afternoon, I
cal'late, 'll be fair. I--I--that is to say, I was figgering on goin' to
the village myself to-morrer.”
Then Emma would pump up a blush, and smile, and purr that she was SO
glad, 'cause then she'd have comp'ny. And Eben would glower at Beriah
and Beriah'd grin sort of superior-like, and the mutual barometer, so's
to speak, would fall about a foot during the next hour. The brotherly
business between the two prophets was coming to an end fast, and all on
account of Mrs. Kelly.
She played 'em even for almost a month; didn't show no preference
one way or the other. First 'twas Eben that seemed to be eating up to
wind'ard, and then Beriah'd catch a puff and gain for a spell. Cap'n
Jonadab and me was uneasy, for we was afraid the Weather Bureau would
suffer 'fore the thing was done with; but Peter was away, and we didn't
like to interfere till he come home.
And then, all at once, Emma seemed to make up her mind, and 'twas all
Eben from that time on. The fact is, the widder had learned, somehow or
'nother, that he had the most money of the two. Beriah didn't give up;
he stuck to it like a good one, but he was falling behind and he knew
it. As for Eben, he couldn't help showing a little joyful pity, so's to
speak, for his partner, and the atmosphere in that rain lab'ratory got
so frigid that I didn't know but we'd have to put up a stove. The two
wizards was hardly on speaking terms.
The last of August come and the “Old Home House” was going to close up
on the day after Labor Day. Peter was down again, and so was Ebenezer
and Belle, and there was to be high jinks to celebrate the season's
wind-up. There was to be a grand excursion and clambake at Setuckit
Beach and all hands was going--four catboats full.
Of course, the weather must be good or it's no joy job taking females to
Setuckit in a catboat. The night before the big day, Peter came out to
the Weather Bureau and Jonadab and me dropped in likewise. Beriah was
there all alone; Eben was out walking with Emma.
“Well, Jeremiah,” says Brown, chipper as a mack'rel gull on a spar-buoy,
“what's the outlook for to-morrer? The Gov'ment sharp says there's a big
storm on the way up from Florida. Is he right, or only an 'also ran,' as
usual?”
“Wall,” says Beriah, goin' to the door, “I don't know, Mr. Brown. It
don't look just right; I swan it don't! I can tell you better in the
morning. I hope 'twill be fair, too, 'cause I was cal'lating to get
a day off and borrer your horse and buggy and go over to the Ostable
camp-meeting. It's the big day over there,” he says.
Now, I knew of course, that he meant he was going to take the widder
with him, but Peter spoke up and says he:
“Sorry, Beriah, but you're too late. Eben asked me for the horse and
buggy this morning. I told him he could have the open buggy; the other
one's being repaired, and I wouldn't lend the new surrey to the Grand
Panjandrum himself. Eben's going to take the fair Emma for a ride,” he
says. “Beriah, I'm afraid our beloved Cobb is, in the innocence of his
youth, being roped in by the sophisticated damsel in the shoo-fly hat,”
says he.
Me and Jonadab hadn't had time to tell Peter how matters stood betwixt
the prophets, or most likely he wouldn't have said that. It hit Beriah
like a snowslide off a barn roof. I found out afterwards that the widder
had more'n half promised to go with HIM. He slumped down in his chair
as if his mainmast was carried away, and he didn't even rise to blow
for the rest of the time we was in the shanty. Just set there, looking
fishy-eyed at the floor.
Next morning I met Eben prancing around in his Sunday clothes and with a
necktie on that would make a rainbow look like a mourning badge.
“Hello!” says I. “You seem to be pretty chipper. You ain't going to
start for that fifteen-mile ride through the woods to Ostable, be you?
Looks to me as if 'twas going to rain.”
“The predictions for this day,” says he, “is cloudy in the forenoon, but
clearing later on. Wind, sou'east, changing to south and sou'west.”
“Did Beriah send that out?” says I, looking doubtful, for if ever it
looked like dirty weather, I thought it did right then.
“ME and Beriah sent it out,” he says, jealous-like. But I knew 'twas
Beriah's forecast or he wouldn't have been so sure of it.
Pretty soon out comes Peter, looking dubious at the sky.
“If it was anybody else but Beriah,” he says, “I'd say this mornings
prophecy ought to be sent to Puck. Where is the seventh son of the
seventh son--the only original American seer?”
He wasn't in the weather-shanty, and we finally found him on one of the
seats 'way up on the edge of the bluff. He didn't look 'round when we
come up, but just stared at the water.
“Hey, Elijah!” says Brown. He was always calling Beriah “Elijah” or
“Isaiah” or “Jeremiah” or some other prophet name out of Scripture.
“Does this go?” And he held out the telegraph-blank with the morning's
prediction on it.
Beriah looked around just for a second. He looked to me sort of sick
and pale--that is, as pale as his sun-burned rhinoceros hide would ever
turn.
“The forecast for to-day,” says he, looking at the water again, “is
cloudy in the forenoon, but clearing later on. Wind sou'east, changing
to south and sou'west.”
“Right you are!” says Peter, joyful. “We start for Setuckit, then. And
here's where the South Shore Weather Bureau hands another swift jolt to
your Uncle Sam.”
So, after breakfast, the catboats loaded up, the girls giggling and
screaming, and the men boarders dressed in what they hoped was sea-togs.
They sailed away 'round the lighthouse and headed up the shore, and the
wind was sou'east sure and sartin, but the “clearing” part wasn't in
sight yet.
Beriah didn't watch 'em go. He stayed in the shanty. But by and by, when
Eben drove the buggy out of the barn and Emma come skipping down the
piazza steps, I see him peeking out of the little winder.
The Kelly critter had all sail sot and colors flying. Her dress was some
sort of mosquito netting with wall-paper posies on it, and there was
more ribbons flapping than there is reef-p'ints on a mainsail. And
her hat! Great guns! It looked like one of them pictures you see in a
flower-seed catalogue.
“Oh!” she squeals, when she sees the buggy. “Oh! Mr. Cobb. Ain't you
afraid to go in that open carriage? It looks to me like rain.”
But Eben waved his flipper, scornful. “My forecast this morning,” says
he, “is cloudy now, but clearing by and by. You trust to me, Mis' Kelly.
Weather's my business.”
“Of COURSE I trust you, Mr. Cobb,” she says, “Of course I trust you, but
I should hate to spile my gown, that's all.”
They drove out of the yard, fine as fiddlers, and I watched 'em go. When
I turned around, there was Beriah watching 'em too, and he was smiling
for the first time that morning. But it was one of them kind of smiles
that makes you wish he'd cry.
At ha'f-past ten it begun to sprinkle; at eleven 'twas raining hard; at
noon 'twas a pouring, roaring, sou'easter, and looked good for the next
twelve hours at least.
“Good Lord! Beriah,” says Cap'n Jonadab, running into the Weather
Bureau, “you've missed stays THIS time, for sure. Has your
prophecy-works got indigestion?” he says.
But Beriah wasn't there. The shanty was closed, and we found out
afterwards that he spent that whole day in the store down at the Port.
By two o'clock 'twas so bad that I put on my ileskins and went over to
Wellmouth and telephoned to the Setuckit Beach life-saving station
to find out if the clambakers had got there right side up. They'd got
there; fact is, they was in the station then, and the language Peter
hove through that telephone was enough to melt the wires. 'Twas all in
the shape of compliments to the prophet, and I heard Central tell him
she'd report it to the head office. Brown said 'twas blowing so they'd
have to come back by the inside channel, and that meant landing 'way up
Harniss way, and hiring teams to come to the Port with from there.
'Twas nearly eight when they drove into the yard and come slopping
up the steps. And SUCH a passel of drownded rats you never see. The
women-folks made for their rooms, but the men hopped around the parlor,
shedding puddles with every hop, and hollering for us to trot out the
head of the Weather Bureau.
“Bring him to me,” orders Peter, stopping to pick his pants loose from
his legs; “I yearn to caress him.”
And what old Dillaway said was worse'n that.
But Beriah didn't come to be caressed. 'Twas quarter past nine when we
heard wheels in the yard.
“By mighty!” yells Cap'n Jonadab; “it's the camp-meeting pilgrims. I
forgot them. Here's a show.”
He jumped to open the door, but it opened afore he got there and Beriah
come in. He didn't pay no attention to the welcome he got from the gang,
but just stood on the sill, pale, but grinning the grin that a terrier
dog has on just as you're going to let the rat out of the trap.
Somebody outside says: “Whoa, consarn you!” Then there was a thump and a
sloshy stamping on the steps, and in comes Eben and the widder.
I had one of them long-haired, foreign cats once that a British skipper
gave me. 'Twas a yeller and black one and it fell overboard. When we
fished it out it looked just like the Kelly woman done then. Everybody
but Beriah just screeched--we couldn't help it. But the prophet didn't
laugh; he only kept on grinning.
Emma looked once round the room, and her eyes, as well as you could see
'em through the snarl of dripping hair and hat-trimming, fairly snapped.
Then she went up the stairs three steps at a time.
Eben didn't say a word. He just stood there and leaked. Leaked and
smiled. Yes, sir! his face, over the mess that had been that rainbow
necktie, had the funniest look of idiotic joy on it that ever _I_ see.
In a minute everybody else shut up. We didn't know what to make of it.
'Twas Beriah that spoke first.
“He! he! he!” he chuckled. “He! he! he! Wasn't it kind of wet coming
through the woods, Mr. Cobb? What does Mrs. Kelly think of the day her
beau picked out to go to camp-meeting in?”
Then Eben came out of his trance.
“Beriah,” says he, holding out a dripping flipper, “shake!”
But Beriah didn't shake. Just stood still.
“I've got a s'prise for you, shipmate,” goes on Eben. “Who did you say
that lady was?”
Beriah didn't answer. I begun to think that some of the wet had soaked
through the assistant prophet's skull and had give him water on the
brain.
“You called her Mis' Kelly, didn't you?” gurgled Eben. “Wall, that
ain't her name. Her and me stopped at the Baptist parsonage over to East
Harniss when we was on the way home and got married. She's Mis' Cobb
now,” he says.
Well, the queerest part of it was that 'twas the bad weather was really
what brought things to a head so sudden. Eben hadn't spunked up anywhere
nigh enough courage to propose, but they stopped at Ostable so long,
waiting for the rain to let up, that 'twas after dark when they was half
way home. Then Emma--oh, she was a slick one!--said that her reputation
would be ruined, out that way with a man that wa'n't her husband. If
they was married now, she said--and even a dummy could take THAT hint.
I found Beriah at the weather-shanty about an hour afterwards with his
head on his arms. He looked up when I come in.
“Mr. Wingate,” he says, “I'm a fool, but for the land's sake don't think
I'm SUCH a fool as not to know that this here storm was bound to strike
to-day. I lied,” he says; “I lied about the weather for the first time
in my life; lied right up and down so as to get her mad with him. My
repertation's gone forever. There's a feller in the Bible that sold
his--his birthday, I think 'twas--for a mess of porridge. I'm him;
only,” and he groaned awful, “they've cheated me out of the porridge.”
But you ought to have read the letters Peter got next day from
subscribers that had trusted to the prophecy and had gone on picnics
and such like. The South Shore Weather Bureau went out of business right
then.