Evening star., 1901-04-27
WOES OF A WEATHER MAN

NO" remarked the young man who holds
down a clerkship in the weather bureau, Il
never let anybody know where 1 work un-
less l have to-unless I'm driven to it. I'd
as lief have people think me porchclimb-
er or pickpocket or an all-around crook
as to let 'em know that I've got a job In
the weather bureau. There are too many
folks, as it is, that know I'm an employe of
the weather bureau. I've been trying for
years to land in some Washington boarding
house where there was a decent chance OF
my occupation not becoming known; but 1t
always leaks out, sooner or later, and the
result is that I'm changing boarding houses
all the time. l can't stand the gaff you
see. AS soon as the bunch get next to the
fact that I'm a weather bureau employe
they begin to gag me about the weather
and to pretend to hold me personally re-
sponsible for it. Now, that kind O thing
used to be funny way back in the early
days when the weather outfit was first es-
tablished. but it's pretty cheap and fraz-
Zled humor at this stage of the game.
Now, I'm only clerk in one branch OF
the weather bureau-a branch that hasn
anything to do with the scientific end of
the business-and / don't know any more
about weather conditions than June bug.
Any rheumatic old darkey down in Blood
field, any shad-trapper of ordinary intelli-
gence, any man with a corn, could give me
cards and spades and big casino and then
beat me out when it comes to knowing
things about the weather. The weather
doesn't bother me at ALL [ don't care
whether it SHOWS in August or whether the
thermometer climbs to 40 in the shade in
January, so long as my little envelope is
ready for me the first and fifteenth of
each month. My time is wholly occupied,
when I'm working, in endeavOring not to
perform any more labor with my head and
pen than the duties of my job call for 1
xrny T,1i fro,,,
a Sahara simeon if both of 'em swoopcd
upon me and whacked me in the small of
the back at one and the same time, and
what L don't know about high and low
preSSureS and cirrus and cumuluS clouds
and average rainfalls and minimum and
maximum temperatures and corresponds,
PERIODS last year and stuff like that you
could take down In shorthand for several
it.
Yet every galoot that knows I'm an en-
ploye of the weather bureau considers it
his bounden duty to rally mech, the sad
WagS-oVer the weather. If it rains, they
think it's horribly funny to pin me I'D in
a corner and demand of me what mean by
such conduct, particularly as they had in
tended going out in their new togs. If it
SHOWS, they want to know why | hadn't
predicted the thing and hung out the flag
II 1t s raging hot these merry testers mur-
mur dark things about what they're going
TO do to me If the thermometer doesn't
in the long ago. way back in the yester-
years, but 1t s pernicious hard job to scare
up even a ghastly grin nowadays when
theSe cracks are made at me. It's worst
at whatever boarding house 1 happen to be
graclng with my presence. My every entry
TO the dining room is signal for the grsly
gags of the rest of the bunch, women as
well as men. The women shake their fin
gers at me If it's raining, exclaiming,
Naughty Naughty and then I'm supposed
10 contract my features into broad heart
felt smile and chuckle with spontaneity and
manifest glee. Then they all ask me. in
chorus, what | mean by it. and the idiots
sitting next to me move their chairs away
from me with elephantine limitations Of
aVerSlon-and through 1t all I'm supposed
to chOrtie and snort with insuppressble
merriment. When the thing becomes in
supportable / have to hunt another board
ing house. and I'll bet I've had Temporary
asylum in more than two-thirds of the
boarding houses of Washington up 20 date
Just moved yesterday, in fact The long
stretch of gloomy weather since the begin
ming of April was humorously attributed to
my dark Vaccinations by the deliriously
funny gang that assembled around the feS-
tive board of the place I left yesterday,
and the strain Of keeping my countenance
in cracked smile finally got to be too In
tense for endurance. l suppose I'll have to
live in hollow tree, sooner or later to get
away from these bright, gladsome chuckIe-
heads"
We'll, how long are you going to keep on
dishing out this miserable rainy weather,
anyhow" inquired the weather bureau en-
ployes listener, maliciously, and with a
wild, stifed cry that was half a sob the
victim of his occupation disa appeared into
the murk.