During rainy days along in April, to pass the time away, I would visit them, and while sitting by the camp fire was told of what I have written above, but where they interested me most was when they discussed astronomy and meteorology. They could give the most complete description of the zodiacal heavens and the different constellations. It seems that astronomy had interested their ancestors before leaving Germany nearly one hundred and thirty years before, and it had been taught to each succeeding generation. They seemed to know the position of each planet, and on several occasions when the nights were clear, with a powerful telescope, they would try to show them to me, but as I knew little or nothing of astronomy, I understood but little of their discussions concerning the heliocentric longitude of all the planets, or the points at which they would appear if seen from the sun.

Before many months rolled around I had good reason to believe at least a part of what they tried to explain to me, and that was, that according to the planets we were nearing a certain Jupiter disturbance.

"And what does that mean?" I asked.

"That means," they explained, "It will be dry."

"Jupiter" said John, as he leisurely rolled a cigarette, "circumnavigates the sun once while the earth goes around it twelve times. In Russia Jupiter's position got between the sun and the constellation Pisces, Aries, Taurus and Gemini, it was invariably wet and cool and small grain crops were good, but as it passed on and got between the sun and the constellations Libra and Scorpio it was always followed by a minimum of rainfall and a maximum heat, which caused a severe drouth."

They had hoped it would be different in America, but explained further that when they had lived in Russia it commenced to get dry around St. Petersburg, Warsaw and all northern Russia a year or so before it did in southern Russia.

They had relatives living around Menno, in Hutchinson County, South Dakota, who had witnessed the disastrous drouth during Cleveland's administration. Jupiter was nearing the position it had then occupied and would, in sixty days, be at the same position it had been at that time.

While few people pay any attention to weather "dopsters," I did a little thinking and remembered it had been dry in southern Illinois at that time, and I began to feel somewhat uneasy. According to their knowledge, if the same in southern America as it had been in southern Russia, it would begin to get dry about a year before the worst drouth, then a very dry year, the third year would begin to improve, and after the fourth year conditions would again become normal, but the concensus of their opinion was there would be a drouth.

CHAPTER XLI

Table of Contents

THE DROUTH