The Boy with the U. S. Weather Men Part 16

This was greeted with cries of delight, and one of the lads added:

"I saw a sunset exactly like that only a week ago!"

The Forecaster bent down and looked at a pencilled note underneath the vivid chalk drawing.

"It is dated just a week ago," he said.

"I didn't know you drew with chalks!" said Ross.

For answer, the Forecaster smiled and turned to another one. The first few had been a little crude, but it was evident that they improved as the series went on. All of them, in a curious way, possessed the faculty of giving a real impression of the sunset.

"So you like them," the Weather Man said, when the whole series had been examined.

"They're dandies," declared Ross, and Fred added:

"I wish we could use them as colored plates in the _Review_."

"Who do you suppose drew them?" the Weather Man asked.

"Didn't you?" queried several of the boys together.

The Forecaster shook his head.

"One of the boys?" asked Ross.

Again the Forecaster made a negative gesture.

"A boy drew them," he said, "but not a member of the Mississippi League of the Weather."

"Who was it, Mr. Levin?" pleaded Anton.

"Caesar," he answered, "down on McDowell's place."

"Caesar!" exclaimed Fred; "it couldn't be. Why, he's--" he checked himself just in time, remembering that Dan'l was close by.

"Yes, he's colored," the Forecaster agreed. "But don't you think he can draw?"

"He surely can."

It was on the point of Anton's tongue to suggest that the colored artist should be admitted to the members.h.i.+p of the club, but, so far, its members.h.i.+p had been confined to the white boys, largely in deference to the feelings of the older people of the neighborhood, many of whom remembered the difficulties that followed the reconstruction period after the Civil War.

Anton looked a little troubled.

"Do you think we ought to get mixed up in a thing like this?" he asked.

The Forecaster glanced at him.

"You mean because Caesar is a negro?"

"Yes, sir," the crippled lad replied.

"I don't want to persuade you one way or the other," the Weather Man replied, "but I can tell you how I feel about it. I don't see that it matters very much what point of view a fellow has on the color question, we're all agreed that the darkies should be given every chance. You certainly can't harm yourself by helping any one, no matter who it is that you help."

"Sure," Ross agreed.

"And even if the person you help is never going to be able to do you any good, why, that's all the more reason for helping, isn't it?"

"Yes," admitted Anton.

"All right, then. Supposing some of the older people here do feel that it's necessary to draw the color line closely; well, I don't see that it wouldn't be a good thing for us to strike out a little. The color line is there, and it's going to stay there. But the most unreconstructed man in the district--even Colonel Grattan, for example--will do everything possible to better the condition of the negroes. I think it's the absolute duty of every American boy to help every other American boy when he gets the chance, whether his skin is white or black."

"Yes," said the laconic Bob.

Anton brightened up, for he was anxious to help Caesar.

"What do you suppose we can do?" he asked.

"I'd rather put it up to you boys," said the Forecaster. "This is your affair, after all."

Anton turned to Ross.

"Haven't you some scheme?" he asked.

Ross shook his head.

"I haven't thought one out. How about it, Bob?"

"Deacon Paul," was the abrupt reply.

"Yes," said Ross, "old Paul will do pretty nearly anything for me, because Dad was so good to his father when he was a slave. But I don't quite see what he can do?"

"I do be thinkin'," said the Irishman, "if I might be so bold as to make a suggestion, that there's no reason why you boys shouldn't use a colored lad's work. He's only a contributor, annyway. When a paper takes a story or a picture from a man, it doesn't ask who his parents were.

Why don't ye make some color plates and give them as premiums for subscriptions?"

The Weather Forecaster laughed aloud.

"That's a good business idea, Pat," he said. "Some of the colored planters and farmers are fairly progressive here, and a premium of a colored lad's work might be a good scheme."

"But I can't make colored plates!" protested Fred.

"No," said Pat, "you can't, an' that's a fact. I was forgettin' that this wasn't a regular shop."

"How could we get them made?" asked Anton. "Do you suppose the Weather Bureau in Was.h.i.+ngton would make them for us and let us have a few copies?"

"No," said the Forecaster decidedly, "I know the Bureau wouldn't.

They've a hard enough job doing their work on their present appropriations, as it is, and if they were going to spend money on sunset pictures, Anton, such would be done by some big artist, in consultation with trained meteorologists."

"I've been wondering," began Anton, and paused.