"Ah looked, an' Ah looked again, but thar wasn't nothin' thar but jes' a spot o' sunshine, jes' so bright. An'it sho' was burning hot. Ah took my hand away an' looked at the table. Yas, suh, it was burnin' hot. It's an ol' table and in a sort o' ring jes' exactly the same shape as the ring o' white stones that Mistah Anton put round his sun clock, thar was a burned groove in the table. No wonder my hand got hot. If Ah'd have left it there, there'd have been a hole burned right through my hand. Yas, suh. "Ah spoke to Mammy about it, and Mammy she says to me that in summer time, when it's very hot, she has to throw a cloth over the crystal to keep it from settin' the table on fire. In winter and in cloudy weather thar ain't no heat at all. So Ah says to myself: "'Dan'l, if a bright sun burns the table and a half-bright day scorches the table an' a dull day don't do nothin' to the table, why couldn't some kind o' record be made o' the amount o' sunshine? Mistah Anton, he likes most everythin' like that, an' Ah'm goin' to talk to him about it." "But you never did, Dan'l," put in Anton, not giving much belief to the darky's story. "Ah 'sperimented all by myself first," Dan'l answered. "Ah took a piece of cardboard, the shiny kind, an' I cut out a piece like the shape of the new moon an' laid it on Mammy's table. Sho's yo' born, Mist' Anton, that spot of light from the crystal jes' started to scorch that cardboard. When the sun was bright it burned it a real dark brown, when thar was a cloud over the sun, it didn't burn it at all. When the sun had a little cloud it jes' burned that cardboard a light brown. Ah'll show yo'." He pulled from inside his shirt a piece of cardboard. It was marked with the hours of the day and, as he had said, in places it had been burned dark brown and in others a light brown. At one spot, there was about an inch where the cardboard was perfectly white, and opposite this, Dan'l had got his son to write in sprawling letters, "Cloud here." The cardboard passed quickly from hand to hand. "But this is great!" cried Fred. "I wonder if Mammy wouldn't keep a regular record for us!" With a pompous air, Dan'l stretched out his hand and made a clean sweep around him. Then he reached down for the package at his feet and commenced unwrapping from around it the newspapers in which it was hidden. As, with a flourish, he pulled away the last piece of paper, there was a gasp of admiration from all the boys. There, on the ground before them, was the huge globe of crystal, clear, shining and flawless. "How did you get it, Dan'l?" cried the boys. "Ah bought it," the darky replied. "Leastways, a lot of us got together an' bought it fo' a present to the League. Deacon Brown he arranged it all, when Mistah Levin said to us that the crystal would really work right." "Mr. Levin!" cried Anton. "Then you've known all about this, and never told us!"