The Kansas City sun. (Kansas City, Mo.) 1908-1924, 1915-09-18


mot personally" he answered. He
refused to say more than this. He
had once been scolded by the news
papers for predicting a hot spell on
the eve of the famous blizzard, and 1t
had got on his nerves. This was his
revenge.
Holland, on a salary of $40 a week,
was engaged to be married. He knew
Sears slightly, as the weather man
was a cousin of his fancee. He went
to see Sears.
Tell me the secret" he urged, land
it'll be worth a fortune to me-"
Sears tool him by the arm. Lis
ten, WILL" he said, II won't tell you
the secret, but / will tell you some
thing. Can you scrape together $5t-
DOOR,
Maud has $5,00O," answered Hol-
land, but Of course I can't touch
Certainly you can touch it." an
swered Sears. II give you my WORD
that within FIVE days more the weed
will have vanished. Professor Long
knows why. Don't you see that real
estate, which has gone down to al
most nothing. will shoot up like a
rocket? / can't invest in it myself
out of a sense of propriety, but with
$4,000 | can tell you of a company
that will issue you five shares, and
these will go up from a thousand
apiece to ten times that sum the first
day. There are a lot of people in the
5A,I k,,1yinx an rna1 nufatnb
Holland was convinced. The up
shot was that he went to Miss Maud
Armstrong and got her to withdraw
her Investment, which he handed to
the president of the new company.
He was just in time, for on the
following day all business of any KIND
was suspended. The weed had spread
up the banks of the Hudson n mo
Long Island. The steady easterly WIND
d~issipated the seeds everywhere. BY
the end of the first week Chicago a
been rendered uninhabitable. Kansas
City had already had a taste OF IT,
The whole population was
nomadic, seeking refuge from the
blue weed. And the more 1t was cut
| QOH0 lle ldSlCl IL pPiNoN"
tracts of flourishing country were Jun
giles, above which waved the scarlet
speckled trumpets. Among these
were afterward found the skeletons
of deer and farm cattle.
On the day before that which the
weather man had ~prophesied as the
last the weed had spread as far as
the great desert. Cities were obllt-
Grated, buried far beneath the growth
The country swarmed with refugees,
taking refuge in the woods and fields.
And even here blue patches were be-
ginning to spread. 1t seemed only a
question of time before the whole
country would have to be abandoned
The fatal seventh day after the
prophesy arrived. The hot sun mao
begun to cool. The weather man, MT
Sears. was Just as firm in his conV1c'
ton. and he had so impressed the au'
thorities with his belief that a small
party. in a captive balloon, waited
above what had one been the Singer
building, but was now only a weed
grown projection above the forest,
A cloud appeared in the west and
began to grow rapidly. But the au
thorities, their eyes fixed on the city
below, did not perceive it.
Dear mel" said the secretary Of
the treasury, at last, looking up, y
believe it's going to rain"
We've had none for three weeks
said the secretary for agriculture
"itll do the crops"
Then he remembered. However, ne
had only spoken from force of habit
The whole of the sky grew black
and suddenly a drenching downpoui
sent the captive balloon skipping Ut
and down on it's rope. The hammer
of the hail was the only thing tina
could be heard. Nothing was seer
| but the cloudy recesses Of space
Then, as suddenly, the rain ceased
l and the sun came out. The weather
man wore a smile.
"This time," he said, 81 think my
I prediction of local thunderstorms viii
, be recognized as correct"
But the weed" gasped the head o
the secret service, who had somehow
! been included in the party.
; They looked down, but where tn
weed had beer we're only the build
3 ings Of Manhattan. A few dry, droop
2 ing, s~hrivelled stalks attested to VIVA
) had been the world-conquering plant
The weed had practically disappeared
1t was a Marian weed, and there
is no rain on Mars. 1t could grow
: only in perpetual sunshine, alternat
ing with dry nights. Long had sur
7 missed that, Sears had caught a hin
of 1t and had utilized the knowledge Il
get his revenge.
Real estate went booming. The MIN
company r~eopened its Office, and Hol
land. going to draw his back pay, In
formed Mr.. Jefton that he would b.
leaving at the end of the week,
Jefton looked at him ~sardonically.
r whats this, Holland?" he demand
: ed angrily.
And, starting from his nap, HOLLAND
I opened his yes to receive the drench
ing stream of the film company's hr'
hose.
" Copyright 1915. by W. q. chapman)