"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.
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