Uncle Moses Porter--uncle of the twins on the mother's side, an odd and very shabby old bachelor--comes into it at the same time, but doesn't get in very far. It would be hard to make a hero of him. At about four o'clock that day he stood in Mr. Elder's backyard, barefooted and without his hat, watching the clouds and the wooden fish on the barn, and making up his mind about the weather. That was a subject to which he had given the study of a lifetime. He could tell you as many "signs" as there are letters in the alphabet, and spell out to-morrow's weather very exactly with them; that is to say, what it should be, not always what it actually was--Nature sometimes neglecting in the strangest way her own plain rules. A great deal was said about Uncle Moses's occasional lucky hits, and very little about his frequent misses; and he enjoyed a world-wide reputation (the Frog-End world, again) as a weather-prophet, until "Old Probabilities" at Washington took the wind out of his predictions, and drove him, so to speak, out of the business. But at the time of which I write he was at the pinnacle of his fame, and nobody ventured to doubt his prognostications. If the weather didn't turn out as he predicted, why, so much the worse for the weather! "Wind has whipped 'round the right way this time, boys!" he remarked, after long and careful observation. "It's got square into the west, and I predict it's a-go'n' to stay there, and give us fair weather, nex' four-'n'-twenty hours. The's no rain in yon clouds; it's all been squeezed out, or else I never saw a flyin' scud afore!" He paused as if to relax his mind after the severe strain of this prophecy, and smiled as he came toward the woodshed,--where the twins were standing. "An' I tell ye what, boys! A heap o' that kelp the storm's hove up, are a-go'n' to land, this tide an' tomorrer mornin's, an' you'd better be on hand to git our share on 't." [Illustration: UNCLE MOSE PREDICTS FAIR WEATHER.] Of all the farm-work the twins ever tried, they found going for sea-weed the most delightful. There was a relish of adventure in it; and it took them to the beach, which was always a pleasant change for boys brought up on Frog-End rocks. The kelp was usually hauled up from the shore and left to rot in heaps; after which, it became excellent dressing for the land. There was no good beach very near Mr. Elder's farm, but he had a right on Beman's Beach, two or three miles down the coast. CHAPTER II. A PARTNERSHIP.