The Boy with the U. S. Weather Men Part 14

"I'd be wishful to see the foreman," he said, with a twinkle in his eye, "that's if he's not too busy."

Fred grinned in response.

"I guess I'm the foreman," he said.

"I'm lookin' for a job," the new-comer explained.

"What kind of a job?"

"Any kind of a job in a printin' shop," the Irishman replied. "I'm an old-timer. There's nothin' about printin' I don't know."

"Have you seen a copy of our paper?" asked Fred.

"I have so," was the reply, "I've got it with me, right here." He pulled from his pocket the latest number of the little four-page sheet. "'Tis an illigant publication," he went on, "but I'm thinkin' that you're in sore need of a printer."

"Does it look so bad?" queried the "foreman." "The worst of it is, I don't know how to make it any better."

"I'm not saying that it's bad, but there's a deal to be learnt about printin'," the journeyman declared. "I'm thinkin' your compositor hasn't had overmuch experience."

"He hasn't," the boy admitted. "I'm him. Dan'l helps me all he can, but since he can't read, it makes it bad."

"Give me the job," said the Irishman, "an' I'll make the paper look right."

"I can't," Fred replied. "The subscriptions hardly pay for the paper and the ink. I give Dan'l thirty cents a week for wages to run the press and it's hard to sc.r.a.pe up that much, because Mr. Levin says I mustn't pay out a cent that the _Herald_ hasn't actually earned. What wages do you want?"

"Three dollars a day when I'm workin'," the journeyman printer replied, "an' the good green gra.s.s to sleep on and a hunk of corn-bread to eat when I'm not."

The young editor looked at the journeyman printer with a sudden eagerness.

"I've got four dollars and a half saved up," he said, "that's a day and a half's wages. Will you teach me all about printing in a day and a half? That isn't office money, that's my own, but, you see, it's for me."

"I'll teach ye for nothin'," said the Irishman, pleased at the boy's pluck, "if ye'll give me a bite to eat an' a place to sleep."

Fred shook his head.

"No," he said, "Mr. Levin won't let any of us boys take something for nothing. I'd sooner pay. It would be great if you could get out this week's number for us, and let me see how you do it. I'd learn a heap that way, and it would be just the stuff I want to know. Then the number you got out we could use for something to go by. But you'll have to do it in a day and a half, because that's all the money I've got. Can you?"

"I can that," the printer answered, "an' I'll pay for my board out of it, so that you won't be spending all your money."

"Can't do that either," said the boy, "because that would make it Anton's Dad's money, not mine. If you want to pay him, all right."

The Irishman stripped off his coat and rolled up his sleeves.

"I'll be lookin' to see what fonts o' type ye have in the shop," he declared, and examined the forms which were lying on the rough table.

"Did anny one ever show you annything about printin'?" he asked presently.

"No," said the boy, "I got this printing-press from a chap whose brother used to run it. The fellow who owned it was going to show me how it worked, but he went away and hasn't come back."

"Watch me a while," the journeyman responded and began to unlock the forms that had stood since the issue of the week before. It was a revelation to the boy to see how the trained fingers of the printer sorted, cla.s.sified, and arranged the type. Talking steadily, in his Irish fas.h.i.+on, the journeyman explained how the type should be set up, showed that they had been using twice as much ink as necessary, warned them against pinching the type too closely, explaining that this "put the letters off their feet," and, by altering the arrangement of the sheet, improved its appearance a thousandfold. These routine matters were quickly adjusted, and then the printer asked for the copy which was to fill the first page.

"It's just got here," the young editor answered. "I haven't looked over it yet, but I guess it's all right. I had a wireless yesterday that one of our chaps was sending in a corking description of a sunset, or rather a sort of description of all the sunsets in the last month. Here it is."

He handed the pages of boyish handwriting to the journeyman, who looked over them hastily.

"'Tis fine stuff, entirely," he said in surprise. "I'd be wishful to take some copies of the paper for myself. Listen to this now!" And, turning the sheets, the enthusiastic Irishman read aloud:

"'Sunsets all look different, but when you write down what you see, one right after the other, they seem to be quite alike, that is, when the sky is clear. When the sun begins to set, and there are not many clouds, the lowest part of the sky is more different from the rest of it than in daytime. In the west--at the side of the setting sun--the sky looks white, changing to yellow. In the north and south, it is a dull yellow, which gets yellower. In the east, it is a dirty yellow, which changes slowly into a dull purple. All these yellows are duller at the horizon than a little way above. The purple in the east looks gray at the sky-line but shades into blue, higher up.'

"'Tis an illigant style the boy has," declared the journeyman, and continued:

"'Just as soon as the sun begins to drop below the horizon, an ash-colored plate (the shadow of the earth) begins to creep up the eastern sky, covering part of the purple bit and making it look like a purple rainbow. Soon the shadow covers all the purple light in the east.

"'In the west, where the sun is setting, the colors are all different.

The whitish light spreads quite a long way up into the blue, but when the sun comes close to the horizon, this turns to yellow, lighter higher up and darker lower down. It is sometimes reddish at the horizon line, and the clouds are turned to pink.

"'After the sun has really gone down, the yellow gets darker, changing into orange, sometimes, while the white spot spreads sideways and its upper edge marks off the brighter from the darker bits of the sky.

"'In the darker part of the sky, at about quarter way up, a purple glow suddenly appears. It grows bigger quickly, making a circle, the lower edge of which looks as though it slipped behind the yellow strip. This purple spot in the west comes just as the purple rainbow in the east is dying out, and as the western purple spot grows it gets brighter, so that there is a time, after the sun sets, when it seems brighter than it did before.'"

"That's queer," interrupted Fred.

The printer thought for a moment.

"It's right, bedad," he said, "I've noticed it meself."

He continued reading:

"'Sometimes there are dark blue and greenish stripes running down to the sun and these stripes shoot a long way up into the sky.

"'If there are any clouds, they seem to be generally light yellow to begin with, changing to pink and rose, then red and dark orange. I couldn't find any system in the color of the clouds, perhaps because they are at different heights.

"'A few times I've seen a sort of second faint purple arch or bow in the east, but by that time it's dark. In the west, though, the second arch is quite clear. As the first western purple arch sinks to the horizon, following the sun, a green stretch, ever so green, shows up, and above it is a second arch of bright light, with a purple arch above that. When this last one sinks, it is quite dark.'"

Mr. Levin, as was his habit on Sat.u.r.day afternoon, had come over to the League's club-house, and he had entered during the reading, followed by his usual bevy of boys; Rex, La.s.sie, and four roly-poly puppies, now able to run around on unsteady legs, bringing up the rear.

"That's a mighty accurate description of sunset colors," the Forecaster commented; "whoever did that, deserves a lot of credit. h.e.l.lo! Have you enlarged your staff, Fred?" he continued, as he noted the printer and realized, at a glance, that the little shed had already a.s.sumed a more business-like look.

The editor-in-chief explained the bargain he had made and the Weather Man nodded his head approvingly.

"That's the best way I know to spend your savings," he said, "using them to learn something. I'm glad you're going to have this issue properly printed, too, because that sunset article is about the best you've had, so far. If I don't miss my guess, a good many people will keep that number as a sort of reference for the colors of sunset. Who wrote it?"

"I did, sir," said one of the boys who had come in with him.

"Good work," the Forecaster commented. "Do you happen to know, though, Bert, what makes the colors of sunset? Why doesn't it just gradually get dark as the sun goes down?"

"I don't know," the boy replied. "I tried to explain it the other day and I found I hadn't the least idea why, myself. I asked Father, but he didn't know either."

"Yet it's quite simple," the Weather Man answered, "and if you boys are going to be real meteorologists, you ought to know the reasons for things. First of all, why is the sky blue?"