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.

'Twas Beriah that spoke first.

"He! he! he!" he chuckled. "He! he! he! Wasn't it kind of wet coming
through the woods, Mr. Cobb? What does Mrs. Kelly think of the day her
beau picked out to go to camp-meeting in?"

Then Eben came out of his trance.

"Beriah," says he, holding out a dripping flipper, "shake!"

But Beriah didn't shake. Just stood still.

"I've got a s'prise for you, shipmate," goes on Eben. "Who did you say
that lady was?"

Beriah didn't answer. I begun to think that some of the wet had soaked
through the assistant prophet's skull and had give him water on the
brain.

"You called her Mis' Kelly, didn't you?" gurgled Eben. "Wall, that
ain't her name. Her and me stopped at the Baptist parsonage over to East
Harniss when we was on the way home and got married. She's Mis' Cobb
now," he says.