o the ground a row of stones, or those white clay
marbles. Then the rain can destroy the other whitewash lines, without
doing any harm, because you've got what you were after."

"But how is that going to show the time?" queried Ross.

"Because," said the Forecaster with a smile, "whenever the shadow of the
pole lies along the line of white marbles, which marks the meridian
plane, it is exactly twelve o'clock by sun time."

"Without any measuring as to length?"

"Without any measuring at all."

"That ain't no clock, Mistah Levin," the darky announced in a superior
way. "Ah don't hold with no clock like that."

"Why not, Dan'l?"

"Ah gets hungry other times besides noon," he said. "Ah'd only eat once
a day by that clock. No, suh, Ah wants a clock that tells every hour o'
the day, not jest noon-time.

"Ah got another clock that don't never need no mending, not in
summer-time," continued Dan'l. "My marigolds open at seven sharp every
mornin' an' wink their eyes at me an' say 'Dan'l, yo're hungry,' and Ah
sho' is. An' jest before six o'clock in the evenin', the white
moon-flowers say, 'Dan'l, time fo' supper and yo' little white bed.' An'
dey's right, too. Don't need no sun-clocks."

"I'm like Dan'l," put in Anton, "I'd like to be able to tell every hour,
not just twelve o'clock only!"

"Well," the Forecaster answered cheerfully, "you can make your
sun-clock that way if you like."

"Can we, sir?" asked Anton. "How?"

"By using your pole as the style or upright of a sun-dial. Before clocks
were invented, people told the time by sun-dials, and there was a whole
science of sun-dials, called gnomonics. It was quite a difficult
mathematical science. Even after clocks and watches came into use,
sun-dials continued to be used as time-pieces, because watches and
clocks were expensive and there were few mechanics who could mend them."

"I've been wondering--" began Anton.

"Let's make a sun-dial here, Mr. Levin?" asked Ross, finishing Anton's
sentence. "We can, can't we?"

"Certainly. You can make a sun-dial anywhere. If you had to do it
without a watch, you might find it a little difficult, of course, but it
can be done. For example, I can tell you off-hand that for this latitude
here, the angle between noon and eleven o'clock, is a little over nine
degrees, while it is nearly ten degrees at New York.

"Since you've got a watch, however, it's quite easy. Your meridian line
marks twelve o'clock, and a line drawn a