"I see where you're coming to," he said; "I'd never have thought of that. Go ahead, Mr. Levin."

"With the water in the main stream twenty-five feet higher than in the tributary, due to your retaining wall, boy, instead of the water in the Yazoo River flowing into the Mississippi, all the water above the fifty-foot level in the Mississippi would flow into the Yazoo. The Yazoo couldn't hold the water, and as the stream backed up, it would overflow its banks. All the low valleys would be flooded in exactly the same way that they were before, only, instead of the floods coming directly through a break in the levee or over the banks of the Mississippi, they would come over the banks of the Yazoo. That would be true of every small river that flows into the Mississippi, and there are scores of them."

"What can be done, Mr. Levin?"

"There's only one thing to do," the Weather Man answered, "and that's to build up the levee system, year after year, steadily and without pause, making allowances for the tributaries flowing into the Mississippi and paying especial heed to the rainfall that may be expected in the basin.

Wherever possible, forestry must be undertaken to keep the slopes from erosion. Reservoirs might be built with great profit, from which water could be let down during the low water periods.

"When the river channels are accurately adjusted to the amount of rainfall in the river basin, destructive floods will be averted. We can never expect that the Mississippi will be absolutely put in harness. The basin is too huge, the amount of water that has to be carried down is too great. Permanent dredging and permanent levee construction and repair will always be necessary, and a close co-ordination between the Weather Bureau and the government and state engineers is a first need in the problem."

"Just how does the Weather Bureau come in," asked Ross, "the rainfall?"

"It isn't only the rainfall of the few days in advance," the Forecaster answered, "it's the rain that has fallen before and the rain that's going to fall. If there should be twelve inches of rainfall after a long drought throughout the Mississippi basin, it would make comparatively little difference, for all the rain that fell on the dry ground would be sucked up by it and only a very little would flow into the rivers and streams that feed the Mississippi.

"On the other hand, if there had been slight but frequent rains for weeks and weeks, those twelve inches of water would make an entirely different story. No one, except the Weather Bureau, would have kept track of the amount of rain that had fallen.

"If the ground has been steadily soaked, even by light occasional showers, twelve inches more of rain cannot soak in. Therefore, the entire amount of rain will flow directly into the stream channels and thus into the Mississippi. Flood warnings will be sent out, the height of the flood crest can be estimated, the length of the period of the danger will be known in advance and the proper preparations can be made.

If further rain is threatened, that information can be sent out, also, and the entire Mississippi valley is completely prepared. That's the true preparedness, my boy, being ready for the foe that you know will come. Stupidity or cowardice are the only causes for not being willing and ready to help in time of danger."

"What can a chap do?" asked Ross, aflame with eagerness.

The Forecaster looked at him thoughtfully, but before he answered, Anton piped in, with a plaintive note in his voice:

"Is there anything that I could do?"

In spite of himself, the Forecaster's glance fell on the crutch. Anton's intent gaze followed the look and he flushed. A sudden silence fell, the silence of an abiding tragedy from which all eyes are always turned, the tragedy of the disabled.

"Yes," he said with grave quietness, "there's a great deal that you can do."

The crippled lad regarded him steadily.

The steady rushing of the Mississippi in flood could be heard near by with its thousand miles of menace.

"We need work," the weather expert said, at last, "work with the heart behind it. Even now, the United States Weather Bureau has over four thousand co-operative observers, who work without pay, who work with their hearts behind their duties. Still, this is all too few."

Anton's gaze never wavered, but a question crept into his eyes.

"Yes," answered the Forecaster, "you can be one. I know your father well, and I'm sure that he will be guaranty for the instruments. The work of making and recording observations will be yours. Never late, never forgetting, never swerving from your duty, your post at the rain-gauge and the barometer will be as honorable and responsible a post as the soldier's at sentry-post or behind the gun."

The lad's eyes glowed more deeply.

"Storms, frosts, and droughts will be your enemies," the Forecaster continued, "and they never sleep and never give quarter. The lighthouse-keeper who lets his light go out and permits a ship to go unwarned to wreck upon the rocks is not more guilty than the Weather Observer who allows disaster to sweep, unwarned, upon his district. It is a trust, Anton. Can you and will you take it?"

The sun broke through the clouds, lighting up the yellow wood of the crutch and turning it into gold. It caught the boy's eye, but with a new significance. No longer would it stand between him and his future. There was something he could do for his country, as well as though he were the strongest and best-built lad in all the neighborhood. Life, with its promises of work, opened before him.

"I'll take the trust," he answered simply.

CHAPTER III

PUTTING THE SUN TO WORK

"Fo' the land's sake, Mistah Anton, what fo' yo' puttin' up that pole on the gra.s.s?"

"So that I can find the sun, Dan'l," the crippled lad answered cheerily, as he held upright the pole, while Ross began to fill in the deep hole that the two boys had spent the morning in making.

"Yo' don't need no pole to find the sun," the old darky answered; "why, yonder's the sun, right up over yo' head."

"Is it right over my head, Dan'l?" the boy asked.

The negro, an old family servant, put his hand above his eyes and squinted at the sky.

"Not right over," he corrected himself, "but mighty near it."

"How near?"

Dan'l looked at the boy with a puzzled air.

"Ah don't jest know how near," he answered.

"That's the idea, exactly," Anton rejoined, "I want to know how near."

"Is this hyar another of your contraptions to tell what the weather's goin' to be like the year after next?" the plantation hand queried, taking advantage of his position as an old family appanage. The instruments had been a point of discussion all summer, for Dan'l prided himself on being a weather prophet, though he based most of his predictions on the behavior of the animals and birds around the farm.

"This is to tell time, not weather, Dan'l," Anton answered, "but we'll use it for weather, too."

The darky shook his head.

"Ah don't hold with none o' them gla.s.s things with silver runnin' up an'

down in their insides, what you calls 'fermometers," he declared, "they're not nateral. Ah believe in signs. When, in the evenin', a rooster crows like he's done goin' to bust, ah knows sho' it's goin' to rain befo' mornin'."

He ambled up to Ross, who was busily shovelling in the earth.

"Hyar, Mist' Ross," he said, "let me do that for yo'. Yo' ought to ask old Dan'l when yo' got a job like that."

"That's all right," the older boy answered, readily yielding up the spade, however, and wiping the perspiration from his brow, "it is pretty hot, though."

"Yo' got no call to be workin' right near noon," the negro protested, "that's not fo' white folks. Fust thing yo' know, yo'll be havin' a sunstroke."

He shoveled vigorously as he talked, tamping the earth down hard.

"It's sho' goin' to be a hot summer," he said, "yo' only find the field-mouse nests where the shadder's thickest. Thar," he continued, patting down the earth level with his spade, "that's done now. Yas, suh, it's hot."

He wiped the perspiration from his forehead with the back of his hand.