"No, sir, there is not," replied the man with a great deal of warmth. "When there's no frost there's sure to be snow, and when there's no snow there's frost, and when there's neither there's sure to be rain. And the few days when it's fine they're always Sundays."
On the way to the office of his publishers one crisp fall morning, James Whitcomb Riley met an unusually large number of acquaintances who commented conventionally upon the fine weather. This unremitting applause amused him. When greeted at the office with "Nice day, Mr. Riley," he smiled broadly.
"Yes," he agreed. "Yes, I've heard it very highly spoken of."
The darky in question had simmered in the heat of St. Augustine all his life, and was decoyed by the report that colored men could make as much as $4 a day in Duluth.
He headed North in a seersucker suit and into a hard winter. At Chicago, while waiting for a train, he shivered in an engine room, and on the way to Duluth sped by miles of snow fields.
On arriving he found the mercury at 18 below and promptly lost the use of his hands. Then his feet stiffened and he lost all sensation.
They picked him up and took him to a crematory for unknown dead. After he had been in the oven for awhile somebody opened the door for inspection. Rastus came to and shouted:
"Shut dat do' and close dat draff!"