New Adventures of the Mad Scientists' Club by Bertrand R. Brinley, Charles Geer Page A

don't soon get some rain," whined
Jason, mopping his gray hair back off his forehead. "I never did see such
a hot spell as we're havin' now."
           
"Yes, sir!" Ned Carver agreed. "That little piece of grass in
front of my place is about burned to a crisp right now. I expect it's been a
month since we've seen a real rain."
           
"Longer'n that," moaned Jason. "Them leaves on my trees'll snap
right in two in your fingers, they're so dry."
            "I
hear tell Mayor Scragg is bringin' in some professional rainmakers," said
Charlie Brown. "Some real experts from the Department of Agriculture and
the State University."
           
"Won't do no good," muttered Jason, stoically. "They tried that
over in Clinton last year, and it wasn't worth a hill of beans -- all them
birds with their blowin' machines and their silly airplanes! Pshaw! You might
as well get down on your knees and pray. When the Lord says 'Let it rain!'
it'll rain."
           
"That don't say you can't give the Lord a helpin' hand," said Charlie.
"The Mayor and the Town Council know what they're doing." Charlie
Brown is the town treasurer, and he's been on the Town Council for thirty-one
years. He owns the only funeral parlor in Mammoth Falls, and everybody respects
him. He generally knows what's going on in town.
            Jason
Barnaby didn't answer for a while. He was staring at the highly polished toes
of Charlie's black pumps.
           
"How come you're always wearing a new pair of shoes?" he asked
finally. "I swear you got more shoes than any man in town."
           
"Mind your own business!" said Charlie Brown. "We were talkin'
about the dry spell."
            I didn't
hear much of the rest of the conversation, because I kept falling asleep like I
always do in the barbershop -- especially on hot days. I woke up when Mr.
Carver snapped the hair cloth and said "Next!"
           
"Couldn't you Mad Scientists do something to bring on rain?" he asked
me with a chuckle, as I climbed into the chair. "You kids are always
getting mixed up in something crazy."
            "I
s'pose if anybody could make it rain, Henry Mulligan could," I said,
before I fell asleep again.
            Old Ned
Carver didn't know it, but he had started something. Before the month was out
he was wishing he'd kept his mouth shut.
            The Mad
Scientists' Club meets almost every day during the summer, because we usually
have some kind of a project going. When I went out to Jeff Crocker's barn that
afternoon to find the rest of the gang, my head was full of crazy notions about
how we might make it rain -- like dipping a huge sponge in Strawberry Lake and
floating it over Mr. Barnaby's apple orchard suspended from big balloons.
            In the
clubhouse I found Mortimer Dalrymple fiddling around with the ham radio outfit
and Homer Snodgrass stretched out on the rusty old box-spring mattress in the
corner reading a tattered volume of Rudyard Kipling's poetry.
           
"Hey, listen to this!" said Homer.
           
    "'If
you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs and blaming it on
you, If you can trust yourself --'"
            "If
I had your head I wouldn't want to keep it!" said Mortimer in a loud
voice.
            Homer
answered him with a raspberry and rolled over to prop his book against the
wall.
           
"Where's Henry and Jeff?" I asked. "I got important business to
discuss."
           
"They're out in back, washing Mr. Crocker's car," said Mortimer.
            Jeff
Crocker's dad makes him wash the family car once a week. We're all supposed to
help, in return for using the barn as our clubhouse, but mostly Jeff ends up
washing it himself. Fortunately, he and Henry were just about finished when I
found them, and I told them all about the conversation I had heard in the
barbershop.
            "I
know it's been rough," Jeff said. "All the farmers around here are
complaining. My dad says there won't be enough hay