hing
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 boarder