Chapter 9

IN THE WHIRL OF A TORNADO

The success of the Weather Forecasts which had been put out in the weekly _Review_ and the saving of Jed Tighe's crop had given the League a high standing among the farmers of the neighborhood, but when the story became noised abroad how Anton had saved Dan'l from unjust arrest, every darky in the neighborhood became its devoted slave.

Dan'l himself racked his brains for some way to show his appreciation, but none occurred to him. He could not be any more faithful and loyal than he had been in the past. A dozen plans occurred to him, all to be set aside as useless. He wanted to do something that really would help the League. What was there that he could do? As in all cases of difficulty, he decided to go to blind Mammy for advice. The conference in the old fortune-teller's cabin was a long one, but when Dan'l came out, he carried a huge bundle in his arms and his black face shone with triumph.

As spring advanced, kite-flying resumed its former sway among the boys and Tom's place became again a centre of attraction. Assiduous as he had been before, Dan'l had redoubled his attentions, and he was seldom found far distant from Anton's side. One Saturday, however, he did not appear at the kite-ground until well on in the afternoon, and when he did come, he was carrying something big in his arms, and stepping along as gingerly as if the burden were a baby.

"What on earth have you got there, Dan'l?" asked Tom.

"Ah done got somethin' fo' the League," the darky answered, and, coming up to the midst of the group, which was gathered around the kite-reel, he lowered the burden gently, very gently, to the ground.

"What is it?" asked Anton.

Dan'l looked around. There was triumph in his glance. He was evidently very proud of himself.

"Ah's made a discovery," he said. "Mistah Fred, yo'-all wants to take notes of what I say, so's yo' can print it in the _Review_."

To humor the old darky, the editor-in-chief took out his pencil and note-book and waited for the story.

"Ah was down in ol' Mammy Lee's cabin the other day," he began, "becase Ah wanted to talk to Mammy about somethin'."

"Went to have your fortune told, I suppose," put in Tom.

"No, Mistah Tom, no, Ah done hold with no tellin' of fortunes, but Mammy she knows a heap an' can see more with her eyes shut than most folks with them open. It was a mighty hot day an' the sun was a shinin' hot. Ef it hadn't been that the sun was a shinin' so hot, Ah wouldn't have this story to tell yo'."

He paused for effect and the boys drew closer. Dan'l was a famous story-teller and his tales were always popular among the boys.

"Ah was standing in Mammy's cabin," he continued. "She was a sittin' in her old rockin' chair in the sun right near that little table where she keeps the big glass ball for tellin' fortunes."

"You mean her crystal?" put in the Forecaster.

"Yas, suh, Mistah Levin, her crystal. Mammy has two, the little one, what she uses all the time an' the big one, which she doesn't use no mo'. Ah was a sittin' on the other side o' the table, right by the window, an' my hand was on the table. By and by, Ah felt my hand burnin' as though some one had laid a match on it. Ah pulled away my hand but thar wa'n't nothin' thar. Ah thought it queer, but Ah didn't say nothin' and went on talkin'. By and by, leanin' forward to say some thin' mo' to Mammy, Ah put my hand on the table again, an' suddenly, the back of my hand began to burn as if de devil was standin' on it.

"Ah looked, an' Ah looked again, but thar wasn't nothin' thar but jes' a spot o' sunshine, jes' so bright. An'it sho' was burning hot. Ah took my hand away an' looked at the table. Yas, suh, it was burnin' hot. It's an ol' table and in a sort o' ring jes' exactly the same shape as the ring o' white stones that Mistah Anton put round his sun clock, thar was a burned groove in the table. No wonder my hand got hot. If Ah'd have left it there, there'd have been a hole burned right through my hand. Yas, suh.

"Ah spoke to Mammy about it, and Mammy she says to me that in summer time, when it's very hot, she has to throw a cloth over the crystal to keep it from settin' the table on fire. In winter and in cloudy weather thar ain't no heat at all. So Ah says to myself:

"'Dan'l, if a bright sun burns the table and a half-bright day scorches the table an' a dull day don't do nothin' to the table, why couldn't some kind o' record be made o' the amount o' sunshine? Mistah Anton, he likes most everythin' like that, an' Ah'm goin' to talk to him about it."

"But you never did, Dan'l," put in Anton, not giving much belief to the darky's story.

"Ah 'sperimented all by myself first," Dan'l answered. "Ah took a piece of cardboard, the shiny kind, an' I cut out a piece like the shape of the new moon an' laid it on Mammy's table. Sho's yo' born, Mist' Anton, that spot of light from the crystal jes' started to scorch that cardboard. When the sun was bright it burned it a real dark brown, when thar was a cloud over the sun, it didn't burn it at all. When the sun had a little cloud it jes' burned that cardboard a light brown. Ah'll show yo'."

He pulled from inside his shirt a piece of cardboard. It was marked with the hours of the day and, as he had said, in places it had been burned dark brown and in others a light brown. At one spot, there was about an inch where the cardboard was perfectly white, and opposite this, Dan'l had got his son to write in sprawling letters, "Cloud here."

The cardboard passed quickly from hand to hand.

"But this is great!" cried Fred. "I wonder if Mammy wouldn't keep a regular record for us!"

With a pompous air, Dan'l stretched out his hand and made a clean sweep around him. Then he reached down for the package at his feet and commenced unwrapping from around it the newspapers in which it was hidden. As, with a flourish, he pulled away the last piece of paper, there was a gasp of admiration from all the boys.

There, on the ground before them, was the huge globe of crystal, clear, shining and flawless.

"How did you get it, Dan'l?" cried the boys.

"Ah bought it," the darky replied. "Leastways, a lot of us got together an' bought it fo' a present to the League. Deacon Brown he arranged it all, when Mistah Levin said to us that the crystal would really work right."

"Mr. Levin!" cried Anton. "Then you've known all about this, and never told us!"

"It was Dan'l's secret," the Forecaster answered. "Do you suppose I'd rob him of the fun of telling you? He's right. Dan'l's worked out, all by himself, the principle of the Campbell-Stokes sunshine recorder, and I think there's a lot of credit coming to him."

Anton leaned down and tried to pick up the globe, but it was too heavy for him. Monroe raised it for examination. It was a beautiful crystal, almost two feet in diameter and without a scratch.

"What a corker!" cried Tom.

"Where will you put it, boys?" asked the Forecaster.

There was a moment's pause and then Bob said:

"Club-house."

"Yes," the Forecaster agreed, "I think that's best, because I know Dan'l really would like to see it a part of Anton's outfit. Besides, boys, Anton's going to do some work this summer on sunshine measuring and the relation of sun-spots to the weather, and he'll need a recorder just like this."

"Have sun-spots anything to do with the weather, sir?" asked Ross, in surprise.

"Yes," the Forecaster answered, "it seems quite possible that they have, though to what extent we don't quite know. There's a big field of original work, there, and we've only just found out about it. It's rather a pitiful story, boys, but the man who blazed the trail to that new knowledge, died just two months before the world knew about him."

"Who was that, sir?" asked Anton.

"Veeder," was the answer. "Dr. Major Albert Veeder, who lived and died, an almost unknown country doctor in the little town of Lyons, N. Y. Without any money of his own, he worked hard on meteorology, especially studying auroras and sun-spots. More than any man who ever lived, he tried to show to what an extent the weather of the earth is modified by changes in the sun, chiefly by intensifying the pressure of the anticyclonic areas.

"Now, boys, for the discovery.

"In January, 1916, one of the best-known American meteorologists sent to a brother scientist a postal card which called attention to a recently published article which appeared to be of a good deal of importance. By a curious coincidence, the other scientist had that very day been reading an article published twenty years before in an obscure local scientific magazine, written by Dr. Veeder.

"The two meteorologists, struck by the originality of the ideas and the evidence of the vast amount of work that lay behind them, wrote to Dr. Veeder at his home in the little New York State town. The recognition that had so long been delayed was on its way. A black-bordered letter came in reply. Dr. Veeder had died two months before!"

A sharp indrawing of the breath told of the boys' interest.

"Dr. Veeder's family at once forwarded the papers, published and unpublished, of the unknown country doctor. These revealed that, as early as twenty years before his death, he had made discoveries of vast importance to meteorology and astronomy. He wrote time and again to the Weather Bureau, begging us to give his hypothesis a trial."

"And didn't you?" asked Fred.

The Forecaster shook his head.

"We couldn't," he answered. "We had no funds for special research and Dr. Veeder's ideas were so far ahead of his time that, then, they seemed visionary. Now, twenty years later, when a great deal of similar work has been done in Europe and in this country, we see that Dr. Veeder was a real pioneer, although, of course, many of his conclusions are still doubtful. Yet, in poverty, in discouragement, in the turmoil of a busy life, he continued his work for fifteen years, then reluctantly abandoned it, despairing of support and opportunity. Yet he leaves a debt that science can never repay. Such men may be everywhere; one of you boys may be the meteorologist of the coming generation. Veeder may be dead but his work lives after him."

The Weather expert picked up the great glass crystal which Monroe had replaced upon the ground.

"We will go on with Veeder's work ourselves," he repeated, "so far as we can. Veeder showed us that sun-spots and changes in the sun are closely followed by changes on the earth, and he suggested that this is caused by some agency other than heat. From that we shall go on. Let us do some sun-study. It is symbolic, to me, that a crystal once used for the superstition of crystal-gazing, should become a tool for scientific research."

He raised the crystal to shoulder height.

"Here's to Veeder!" he shouted. "And to Dan'l!"

The cheers were given with a vim.

Interesting as the work of the League had been to the boys during its first summer, when all were learning of the ways to read the weather, this second summer became tenfold more exciting, when every lad realized that he was part of a group striving to advance along the lines laid down by Veeder. The money which Jed Tighe handed over to the League as its fair share of having saved his fruit crop, was spent in the purchase of a telescope for studying the sun and for various other scientific instruments, and, as the Forecaster had foretold, Issaquena County began to take its place as one of the most efficiently organized meteorological regions of the United States.

The summer was passing on. The year and a half that had elapsed since the flood, a year and a half of constant association with the Forecaster, and still more, of constant association with work that was worth while, had developed the boys of the League and given them a new grip on life.

One Saturday, Ross came over early in the morning to help Anton with some of his sunshine experiment work. The crippled lad had definitely settled down to the study of meteorology and spent all his time either at his instruments or at his books. Under the Forecaster's teaching, he was becoming thoroughly proficient, and the fact that the lad was a natural-born mathematician stood him in a good stead. He was no longer merely a crippled lad, with scarcely a chance before him, he was making a place for himself in the community and there was no doubt that he would make a place for himself in life. This morning, as Anton came out of the club-house to meet his friend, Ross looked at him and thought how wisely the Forecaster had done in suggesting the formation of the League.

"Bad weather coming, isn't there, Anton?" Ross asked, as they strolled into the club-house together.

"Thunderstorms, I expect," the other answered, glancing carelessly at the Weather map. "There's a big 'low' over Illinois, with colder weather coming."

"I'm glad it's going to be cool," said Ross, mopping his forehead, "to-day is something fierce."

"Yes, it's hot," agreed Anton, and turned the subject to some of his recent work on sun-spots and the weather. He had become an absolute convert to Dr. Veeder's theories, and the dream of the boy's life was to be able to take a part in the most fascinating of all weather problems--long-range forecasting.

"It would be great, Ross," he said, "if we could tell a year in advance what kind of weather we were going to have, so that farmers would know exactly just what kind of crops to plant and when!"

"Yes," Ross agreed, but uneasily, for he was watching the sky steadily, "but do you think we'll ever be able to do it?"

"I don't think we'll ever be able to tell exactly," replied Anton, "but I'm sure the time's coming when we're going to be able to get a general idea. If we can just find out enough about the sun's influence on our weather and enough about the big changes in the sun, we ought to be able to foretell something. There's no doubt that weather does go in cycles."

"I don't see that," said Ross. "I think it's changing all the time. You always hear people say that the winters aren't nearly as cold as they used to be."

"That's all bosh," Anton declared. "Mr. Levin and I were talking over that just the other day. There hasn't been any change of weather. The winters to-day average the same that they did fifty years ago. There's some sort of an eleven-year cycle in rainfall, and there's a variation in temperature that seems to swing around about once in every thirty-seven or thirty-eight years, but the differences are so small that only Weather Bureau records can prove them. The weather isn't any hotter or any colder than it used to be, it's just about the same."

But Ross was not listening. His eyes were fixed on the horizon.

"Anton," he said, "I wish you'd come here a minute."

Struck by his companion's tone, the younger lad looked up and, grasping his crutch, limped to the door. He took a glance at the sky and whistled in a low and thoughtful way.

"Look at those clouds to the north-west," said Ross. Then, pointing to the south-west quarter, "And look at them there!"

Anton looked, his eyes dilating. In the north-west, swarthy, curling wreaths of vapor that seemed as though they rose from a monstrous burning straw-stack writhed their way upward to a great height, the upper portion seeming to tremble threateningly, as though there were a shaking fist within the swirl, hidden by clouds. The column was smoky and threatening, yet a whitish light came from beneath it suggesting phosphorescent vapors.

To the south-west were clouds of a different character, darker and more compact. They were not blacker than many clouds preceding a heavy rainstorm, but they had an uneasy motion. From these came no whitish phosphorescent light; instead, there was a greenish glitter, like a snake's eyes seen in the dark. There was something evil and sinister about them. The air was reverberant, sounds could be heard to a great distance. The farm animals were unquiet and moved restlessly. Anton wiped the perspiration from his forehead with the back of his hand. He glanced up at the weather-vane.

"It ought to pass to the east of us," he said.

Ross also looked at the weather-vane, and then at the advancing cloud. He knew that nearly all such storms traveled to the north-east.

"It may pass us," he said, "but sometimes they swing north."

"I know it," Anton answered, and fell silent, watching the coming of the storm.

In the distance a faint moaning was heard.

The two huge cloud masses from the two quarters of the sky, as though advancing to give battle, hurled themselves toward each other, the whitish cloud of the north-west towering above the sinister black cloud of the south-west. For a moment, almost as if they paused, a strip of blue sky could be seen between them, then with a sudden rush, the two collided. So solid seemed the masses of the clouds that both boys started, expecting a clap of thunder. Yet never a flash of lightning appeared nor was there any sound.

In the whirl of the two meeting clouds there was a minute of confusion, and then, slowly, a long funnel, like a black finger, began to reach towards the earth.

Both boys saw it at the same time.

"A tornado!" cried Anton.

"Let's get to the cellar!" cried Ross, and started to run, but Anton grasped him by the shoulder.

"No," he said, "we're safe here; it'll pass to the east over the farm lands and won't hit anybody."

In a few seconds Ross saw that the crippled lad was right, and, themselves safe, the boys watched the passing of the tornado.

"It's going about thirty miles an hour," said Anton, figuring rapidly, "and it's all of fifteen miles away. There won't be much left of it by the time it passes here. We don't need to worry."

Reassured, Ross turned to his companion, and asked:

"What makes tornadoes, Anton?"

"A quick current of warm air going up in a thunderhead cloud," he said, "which takes a spinning motion from the general whirl of the cyclone to which it belongs. It has a whirling vortex, from the outside to the inside, and its speed gets higher toward the middle. The speed of the inside of a tornado has never been figured out, but it has been estimated at eight hundred miles an hour, or sixteen times as fast as a train."

"Eight hundred miles an hour!" Ross repeated. "But how did they find that out?"

"Not by any instrument," said Anton; "there isn't anything made that a tornado wouldn't level to the ground. But you can figure that from the size and weight of objects lifted and from the effects of tornadoes. Anyhow, the inside of a tornado is like a vacuum, the pressure is so low.

"I remember reading in a tornado account of a storm in New England where the funnel passed within twenty yards of a house. It was exactly as if a house filled with air were suddenly plunged into a vacuum. All the windows were blown out, the walls bulged, furniture flew out of the windows and corks were drawn from empty bottles by the air inside trying to get out to fill the vacuum in the tornado."

"That's a wonder," ejaculated Ross. "But we're not going to get anything like that this time."

As the boys were talking, the distant tornado suddenly raised itself from the ground and seemed to be drawn up in the clouds again. The danger from the funnel was over. A few minutes afterwards, there came a clap of thunder and the rain commenced to fall in torrents. It rained for less than a minute, however, then was followed by a few hailstones as large as walnuts. The hail stopped as suddenly as it had begun.

Yet, though the funnel cloud had been withdrawn again into the sky, though the rain and hail had ceased, the two boys did not move from the doorway of the club-house. The sky was pressing down heavily and in the masses of clouds that seemed to be moving in every direction, the whitish luminous cloud and the greenish black cloud could both be traced. This was no puny battle of the elements, but a veritable war.

Then, absolutely without warning, as suddenly as though some malevolent demon had picked them out for destruction, from the low-lying bank of clouds that was advancing, a long black swaying clutch thrust at them from the clouds. For a second or two the funnel swayed as though there were eyes in its tip and then snatched at the earth with a roar and crash like a thousand trains in collision.

While one could count three, the lads watched, panic-stricken, then Anton shouted:

"Run north-west, Ross! North-west!"

Like a flash the Forecaster's advice in the event of the approach of a tornado recurred to the boy's mind, and he sprang into a full run. Ten yards, perhaps, he ran, then cast a glance over his shoulder to see if Anton were following. He saw the younger lad huddling down by the south-western corner of the club-house.

Ross colored with shame. For one second he had forgotten Anton's crippled condition.

He whirled on his heel with a speed scarcely less than that of the approaching tornado and darted back for his friend. A dozen strides took him back and he reached down for the younger lad.

As he did so, with the corner of his eye, he saw the tornado touch a neighbor's barn. The moaning suddenly swelled into a vicious and snapping roar. The point of the tornado enlarged, as it became filled with the débris of the barn, and Ross fancied he could hear the squealing of the mangled horses.

Out from the upper part of the wild whirl, high in the sky, a black spot flew. Thrown at a tangent, it fell, growing larger and more bat-like as it fluttered down, striking the earth with a crash. It was the roof of the barn.

All this had happened in the fraction of a second that had elapsed while Ross was picking up the crippled lad, and by the time that he had flung him across his shoulder, the tornado had passed over the neighbor's farm and there was nothing left of the barn but a black bare spot. Before the out-flung roof had struck the ground, Ross was running from the track of the swiftly-moving destruction, with his chum on his shoulder.

The boy knew well that in ninety seconds or less, the tornado would be upon them, and while it swayed with a malicious eagerness from one side to the other, as though seeking for its prey, there was no doubt that it was rushing straight at them.

Second by second, the moaning grew louder, with an uncanny sucking sound as though the monster were licking its lips over the destruction yet to come. The air grew more oppressive and more still.

Twenty yards from the club-house, Ross found Dan'l crouching on the ground, quivering with fright.

"Mistah Anton, Mistah Anton," he cried, "we's all goin' to be killed!"

"Run, Dan'l!" cried Ross, as he sped past. "Run north-west! Follow us!"

White with terror, the aged negro rose and started to run, but before he had gone two yards, his steps slowed down.

"Thar's Mammy," he said, aloud. "Ah can't leave Mammy, nohow. Thar's no one to look after her."

He turned back with unsteady steps, hurrying towards the negro quarters, almost facing the approaching finger that seemed to point at him as he ran.

Ross never looked back. His terror and the terrific heat of the air choked his breathing and he gasped as he ran.

A sudden swirl of air clutched at his feet. He stumbled and almost fell. The crippled boy's crutch slipped to the ground. Anton slid to the earth and a second swirl picked Ross's feet from under him and threw him to the ground.

Then, with a roar and a confusion which stunned the senses, the Thing struck! A legion of hands tugged at them. The earth rose up in a cloud of dust around them.

Towards them the tornado swerved, then away, just a fraction out of its course, and swung back again towards them. As in a dream, Ross saw the crutch, which had slipped out of Anton's grasp, not five yards from where they lay, move restlessly, then, touched by an unseen hand, rise up. While two heart-beats lasted, the crutch stood still and perfectly upright, and then flew straight upwards into the all-devouring maw.

The black-green fury snatched at the waiting world.

With a roar like that of crashing universes, it swept by the boys and swung into the farm building. A hay-stack disappeared into the vortex like a puff of smoke. With a crash of glass, the tornado swept by the corner of the house, and with one wild last shriek was gone.

Gasping, Ross sat up. Across the fields the cloud swept, the long black finger still touching the ground and still bringing wreck and destruction in its wake. Ross gently raised the younger boy, who was only half-conscious from the din and tumult, for the tornado had passed within a few yards of them. They had scarcely walked a dozen yards when the scene of destruction met them full view.

Every window in the house had been shattered and the garden was strewn with broken glass. The buggy, which had been standing before the door, was nowhere to be seen, but one wheel impaled in a tree twenty yards away, told the story. The upright of the sun-dial was gone, snapped off at the ground as though it had been a reed. The club-house remained intact. The track of the tornado was not more than forty feet wide, but where it had passed, the ground was swept clean and bare.

Only one thing remained, and that, by one of the freaks of the tornado, was the pedestal and the large globe of crystal. It had not even been fastened down; it had passed through the centre of the tornado and yet it stood there as unwinking as the sun itself. Stood there all by itself, sharply gleaming against the black ground--

What was that lying on the farther side of it?

"Go back, Anton, go back!" said Ross, hoarsely.

But Anton had seen it, too.

He shook his head.

Haltingly, step by step, the two boys advanced, Anton's hand on Ross's shoulder, to the figure lying on the ground beyond the sun-dial, motionless and oh, so still.

Behind the fast-flying clouds the sun shone out, shone clear and strong on the crystal, standing on its pedestal, and the gleam, passing through, fell full on the face of the man.

"Dan'l! Dan'l!" the crippled lad cried, and dropped to the ground beside him.

He was not hurt. He would never be hurt any more.

Ross looked down at the faithful old darky, who, despite his terror and in the teeth of certain death, had turned back to try to save the aged blind woman in the negro quarters. The tornado had dealt kindly with him. His ragged clothing fluttered in the wind, but his kind old face was peaceful.

The sunlight, gleaming through the crystal, made a halo of light around the negro's head.

"Don't!" said Ross, laying his hand on Anton's shoulder. "There's mighty few of us that'll ever get the chance to die like Dan'l."