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“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.