On the table lay a large map which he had almost finished preparing. It was large not only by its own dimensions but also by its coverage of about one half the northern hemisphere. At its top were the Arctic regions; from these the two continents slanted down—to the right, North America, the left, the eastern portion of Asia. In the center of the map stretched the great spaces of the North Pacific Ocean. The outline of land and sea, the parallels and meridians, the names and numbers of weather stations formed the printed background. Upon this the Junior Meteorologist had entered the current weather data as they had been reported by radio and telegraph, internationally, some hours earlier.

Visitors to the Weather Bureau found such a map confused and unintelligible. But to its maker it was simple, beautiful, and inspiring. Now he was giving it the final revision; with the care of a poet polishing a quatrain, he erased an inch of one line and redrew it with slightly altered curve.

He laid aside his eraser and colored pencils, and sat back to look at the work. Involuntarily, he breathed a little more deeply. To him, as to some archangel hovering in the ninth heaven, the weather lay revealed. Suppose that the telephone should ring and some voice inquire the weather in Kamchatka, upon Laysan Island, or at Aklavik in the frozen delta of the Mackenzie. He could reply not only as to what the weather actually was but also with fair assurance as to what it would most likely be in the near future.

The first sweeping glance assured him that nothing exceptional or unforeseen had happened in the twenty-four hours since he had prepared the last similar map. Antonia had moved about as he had expected. Cornelia and the others were developing normally. Not at any price would the Junior Meteorologist have revealed to the Chief that he was bestowing names—and girls’ names—upon those great moving low-pressure areas. But he justified the sentimental vagary by explaining mentally that each storm was really an individual and that he could more easily say (to himself, of course) “Antonia” than “the low-pressure center which was yesterday in latitude one-seventy-five East, longitude forty-two North.”

The game, nevertheless, was beginning to play out. At first he had christened each new-born storm after some girl he had known—Ruth, Lucy, Katherine. Then he had watched eagerly, hoping in turn that each of these little storms might develop in proper fashion to bring the rain. But one after another they had failed him. Of late the supply of names had run short, and he had been relying chiefly upon long ones ending in -ia which suggested actresses or heroines of books rather than girls he had ever known.