"It was a little quarrel, nothing serious," faltered Mrs. Chester.
"I don't want to hear about it," said Oldfield, hurriedly, himself much embarrassed, and inwardly fuming over himself as a colossal idiot for entering upon such a conversation. "I only want you to think for a minute about the last hour or two Sunday evening before Ned left home. No doubt he was to blame for whatever that was unpleasant, not a doubt; but since you ask me for advice, can't you think of some way to make Sundays and holidays endurable to Ned, bless his big heart! Be a little easy on him, a little careless about his ways. Ned is such a simple fellow! Hard words, irony and sarcasm, complainings and scoldings cut him very deeply! Don't be offended, but don't you think that perhaps you could manage it to somehow keep Ned from flinging out of the house desperate and foolish every once in a while, on some Sunday or holiday? I'll tell you! Begin early—begin sometimes before he is awake—to get things ready, and keep them going so that Ned won't start out, a reckless, emotional maniac before nightfall!"
Oldfield paused, struck by his own earnestness and plain speaking, and somewhat scared.
Mrs. Chester arose, and Oldfield's heart ached for her. "Madame," he said, "any man who leaves wife and child to worry over him for days while he carouses is to an extent a brute. There is no comprehensive excuse for him. But when one is living with, and intends to go on living with a man who at times becomes such a brute, it is as well to know and acknowledge his weak points, and forbear to press him too far, even in the best cause, even when you are perfectly right, as I am sure you always are, for example. But let us come back to our original topic of conversation. I am afraid you cannot see Ned to-day. I will call upon him, and then telephone you his exact condition, telling you if he needs anything. And to-morrow, after the doctor has made his morning visit, I will send you another message. Ned will be all right and at home in a day or two.
"In the mean time you might think over what I have said to you, and make up your mind whether I am right or not. About what, you ask, Miss Chester? Oh! only some nonsense I have been talking to your mother, a sort of theory of mine with which she has no patience, I can see. Good-by, ladies—no, don't waste time thanking me; I am glad if I have been of any use. Good-by."
He bowed them into the elevator, and slowly drifted back into the club library. "Of all fools I am the prize fool!" he murmured to himself. And he called Joseph, and with him set forth to the Barrett House to see Ned Chester.
[THE RAIN-MAKER]
John Gray, civil engineer, good looking and aged twenty-eight, was engaged in the service of the United States of America. He had, upon emerging from college, been fortunate enough to secure a place among the new graduates who are utilized in making what is called the "lake survey," that is, the work upon the great inland seas we designate as lakes, and had finally from that drifted into work for the Agricultural Department—a department which, though latest established, is bound, with its force for good upon this great producing continent, to rank eventually with any place in the cabinet of the President. In the Agricultural Department John Gray, being clever and a hard worker, had risen rapidly, and had finally been appointed assistant to the ranking official whose duty it was to visit certain arid regions of Arizona and there seek by scientific methods to produce a sudden rainfall over parched areas, and so make the desert blossom as the rose.
Mr. John Gray went with the expedition, and distinguished himself from the beginning. He could endure hard work; he was a good civil engineer and comprehended the theory upon which his superiors were working, and above all, he was an enthusiast in the thing they were undertaking, and had independent devices of his own, to be submitted at the proper time, for the attainment of certain mechanical ends which had puzzled the pundits at Washington. He had ideas as to how should be flown the new form of kite which should carry into the upper depths explosives to shatter and compress the atmosphere and produce the condensation which makes rain, just as concussions from below—as after the cannonading of a great battle—produce the same effect. He had fancies about a lot of things connected with the work of the rain-making expedition, and his fancies were practicalities. He proved invaluable to his superiors in office when came the experiments the reports of which at first declared that rain-making was a success, and later admitted something to the contrary.