Before we left the office he stopped to write out the prophecy for
Wednesday, June 21, the First Day of Summer. "Fair and warmer, with
slowly rising temperatur." His hand trembled so as he wrote that he
forgot the final "e". Then we went out and he turned toward his home.

On Wednesday, June 21, it rained.

XXXIII

WELCOME HOME--AND SHUT UP!

There are a few weeks which bid fair to be pretty trying ones in our
national life. They will mark the return to the city of thousands and
thousands of vacationists after two months or two weeks of feverish
recuperation and there is probably no more obnoxious class of citizen,
taken end for end, than the returning vacationist.

In the first place, they are all so offensively healthy. They come
crashing through the train-shed, all brown and peeling, as if their
health were something they had acquired through some particular credit
to themselves. If it were possible, some of them would wear their
sun-burned noses on their watch-chains, like Phi Beta Kappa keys.

They have got so used to going about all summer in bathing suits and
shirts open at the neck that they look like professional wrestlers in
stiff collars and seem to be on the point of bursting out at any minute.
And they always make a great deal of noise getting off the train.

"Where's Bessie?" they scream, "Ned, where's Bessie?... Have you got
the thermos bottles?... Well, here's the old station just as it was when
we left it (hysterical laughter).... Wallace, you simply must carry your
pail and shovel. Mamma can't carry _everything_, you know.... Mamma told
you that if you wanted to bring your pail and shovel home you would have
to carry it yourself, don't you remember Mamma told you that,
Wallace?... Wallace, listen!... Edna, have you got Bessie?... Harry's
gone after the trunks.... At least, he _said_ that was where he was
going.... Look, there's the Dexter Building, looking just the same. Big
as life and twice as natural.... I know, Wallace, Mamma's just as hot as
you are. But you don't hear Mamma crying do you?... I wonder where Bert
is.... He said he'd be down to meet us sure.... Here, give me that cape,
Lillian.... You're dragging it all over the ground.... _Here's Bert!...
Whoo-hoo, Bert_!... Here we are!... Spencer, there's Daddy!... Whoo-hoo,
Daddy!... Junior, wipe that gum off your shoe this minute.... _Where's
Bessie_?"

And so they go, all the way out into the street and the cab and home,
mil