ding 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 pass an examination, or something?"

"Yes. I passed 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 clustering 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,
nobody 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 head