who controls storms; and put forth such a convincing account of all Nancy’s good points, (and Frank’s too, if anybody should ask you) that a command rang out across a stormy sky:—
“Calling all clouds!! Calling all clouds!! All rain to stop at midnight of May Third! Bright Sun on May Fourth, and no wind!”
So, as Nancy took an anxious squint out of doors at about six o’clock on that important morning, (and what young girl could go on, calmly snoozing on such a day?) Lo!! Old Sol was smiling brightly down on Branton Hills; birds sang; all sorts of blossoming things had had a good drink; and a most glorious sky, rid of all ugly clouds, put our young lady into such a happy mood that it took a lot of control to avoid just a tiny bit of humidity around a small pair of rich, brown orbs which always had that vibrating, dancing light of happy youth; that miraculous “joy of living.”
And, what a circus was soon going full tilt in Mayor Gadsby’s mansion! If that happy man so much as said:—“Now, I” a grand, womanly chorus told him that “a man don’t know anything about such affairs;” and that a most satisfactory spot for him was in a hammock on his porch, with a good cigar! That’s it! A man is nominally monarch in his own family; but only so on that out-
[ 95 ]
