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.

Well, the queerest part of it was that 'twas the bad weather was really
what brought things to a head so sudden. Eben hadn't spunked up anywhere
nigh enough courage to propose, but they stopped at Ostable so long,
waiting for the rain to let up, that 'twas after dark when they was half
way home. Then Emma--oh, she was a slick one!--said that her reputation
would be ruined, out that way with a man that wa'n't her husband. If
they was married now, she said--and even a dummy could take THAT hint.

I found Beriah at the weather-shanty about an hour afterwards with his
head on his arms. He looked up when I come in.

"Mr. Wingate," he says, "I'm a fool, but for the land's sake don't think
I'm SUCH a fool as not to know that this here storm was bound to strike
to-day. I lied," he says; "I lied about the weather for the first time
in my life; lied right up and down so as to get her mad with him. My
repertation's gone forever. There's a feller in the Bible that sold
his--his birthday, I think 'twas--for a mess of porridge. I'm him;
only," and he groaned awful, "they've cheated me out of the porridge."

But you ought to have read the letters Peter got next day from
subscribers that had trusted to the prophecy and had gone on picnics
and such like. The South Shore Weather Bureau went out of business right
then.