 Family Theatre presents Loretta Young, Richard Widmark, Jean Cagney, and tonight's special guest, Mr. Thomas F. O'Neill. From Hollywood, the Mutual Network in Cooperation with Family Theatre presents Talk About the Weather, starring Richard Widmark and Jean Cagney. Now, here is your hostess, Ms. Loretta Young. Family Theatre's only purpose is to bring to everyone's attention a practice that must become an important part of our lives if we are to win peace for ourselves, for our families, and for the world. Family Theatre urges you to pray. Pray together as a family, and now to our drama. Talk about the weather, starring Richard Widmark as the narrator, and Jean Cagney as Susan. Each tree is in my meadow. It keeps up like this, there won't be anything left of this valley. God, you just got to make it rain. You've just got to. Out of the Arctic Circle comes an atmospheric river through the sky, roaring, swirling, growing as it runs. A Lucian basin empties itself out into the torrent, and a thousand transient gales are folded in to form a flood wall of cold winds that makes the North Pacific shudder in its bed. On the river flows, pushing warm Pacific air before it, whipping tips of ocean spray into mist, then into icy crystals that slice back into the sea. On the current flows until at last, compressed Hawaiian trades revolt, and mark a battle start. By hurling million-volted spears of light into the sea, and as this war of atmosphere goes on, the raging columns push straight up for lack of space to move in, and then obedient to the laws God has set forth for heat and cold, the warm, moist air condenses into clouds that pile up higher with the battle, until at last they've filled up all the sky and have to go in search of more to rage. The turbulence moves landward, south and east, obedient still to law, for weather always moves from west to east, as surely as God makes it, for a reason. With those peach trees and that meadow, Lord, you've just got to give us some rain. There won't be anything but dust left in this valley. Please, God, just give us one good rain. I know, Lord, maybe I've done a lot of things in my time to cross you. I guess there wouldn't be many who could say they haven't. Maybe I've got it coming, but you've got nothing against trees and alfalfa. They can't take any more dry spell, Lord. Perhaps it's this man praying for rain that sets the hand of God at stirring up the winds to change the atmosphere to weather. Maybe this man of the thousands who are like him who lean on corral fences of their own, bombarding heaven with petitions. Perhaps it's this man's call that causes God to draw air from the polar cap and build a running storm 1200 miles away, a storm to grow alfalfa, water peach trees, and bring new life to even more important things. I guess you know how much we needed, Lord. Howdy, John. Jim Little, it's good to see you. Come on over. Well, let me reach this basket. Brought you and the wife a little preserves. Not much, but the Mrs. had too many jars of apricot and we kind of thought, well, here you are. I'm supposed to bring the basket back. That's mighty kind of you, Jim. And my thanks to Mrs. Little Horse. But I mean, well, we aren't exactly... Oh, it ain't charity, John. I'm trying to get rid of it. Ain't you ever had too many jars of apricot? Yeah. Yeah, I guess I have. Thanks a lot, Jim. Well, I ought to be thanking you. I was getting so as I couldn't look an apricot in the face. Where's your stock? I'll let him out into the big matter. I want to see if I can get some meat back on him. Put him in new alfalfa? What's the difference? Unless we get a good rein, it's not going to get tall enough to cut anyway. Bet you, Jim Little Horse. Howdy, Miss Spiral. I appreciate you not making quite so much dust when you drive in. This house is hard enough to keep clean as it is. Sorry, ma'am. Honey, Jim brought us some preserves. Whole basket, apricot. Oh, I'm sorry if I was sharp with you, Jim. Sorry, Miss Farrow. This is a weather for it. You say hello to your wife for me and thank her for the preserves. I will. And I'll mine the dust on my way out. Kind of edgy, huh? She's been that way for a couple of weeks. She wants me to sell out, Jim. It's about all she ever talks about now. Wants you to sell? Yeah. Your kids are pretty much in love? Pretty much. Then take the advice of an old Indian and sell. Not even married two whole years yet. She's hardly more than a bride, John. Maybe she's not about to see things the way we do. It can be awful hard to make a woman understand that the good in this kind of living more than makes up for the bad. She could only have a little of the good. Since I brought her here, it's been either freezing cold or blazing hot. If she could see it the way it ought to be, just once. With a meadow tall and green and juicy fat freestones on those trees. Just one normal season and a good harvest so I could buy her something nice. Well, I could do a rain dance if you're thinking to do any good. I hate to see you hopping around the dust, you will crow bait. Don't you ever call us a wrap a whole crow bait. We've been Comanche bait and Sue bait once or twice back in the old days, I guess, but never crow. So you've been doing a rain dance of your own, eh? Yeah, you might call it that. See that little smudge of cloud over there? Well, I've been trying to pray it into a storm. Then when it gets to be a storm, I'm going to try praying it over this way. You are, huh? Well, Johnny, you can stop wasting your time on that cloud. I've been watching it half the morning. That one's never going to grow up to be anything. Even if it did, it's going the wrong way. But I'd keep up the praying. Maybe with you and me and everybody else in the valley doing it, we'll get a little action, huh? Not everybody in the valley ranching. There's one among you praying against the rain. Oh, God, if you could just keep it dry a little longer, just a little longer, enough so Johnny'll sell out and we can move to the city and have a normal life. We've tried to make a go of it, Lord. You know we've tried, but it's making us old before our time. And I get so lonely, Lord. The weather veins on Nob Hill slowly swing to point southeast as San Franciscans leave their homes and move toward worker school. And the older ones, without a place to go, look upward at the sky and pause to marvel at the glorious Northern California weather. So warm outside in spite of overcast. And schoolboys notice other things like smoke that falls from chimney tops to settle near the street. Now, shouldn't smoke go up? And why does every noise sound loud that didn't seem very loud yesterday? And drivers wonder at the moisture on their steering wheels while annoyed pedestrians consider clothes stuck to their backs. It surely wasn't warm enough for that. Preludes these things are to coming weather. God's answered in some prayers, he heard, 1,200 miles away. It's been said that faith can move a mountain. And if anything were needed for a proof, the atmosphere from points conception to Delgada would be evidence enough. Not a mountain, but a continent was moving. High, white, thundering continent with ridges, mountain ranges, domes, and maces built of air and water being moved by faith and tailwinds at 40 miles an hour toward the valley of San Luis. Sue? Bet you, Johnny. Thought you might be asleep. No, not yet. Moonlight. The moonlight's too bright. Want me to draw the shade? No, dear, leave it the way it is. Get the pump fixed? Jim and I worked on it for a couple hours, but she's still not drawing water. Jim thinks maybe the water level's dropped below where the pump can reach it. Well, we'll take another crack at it tomorrow. You'd better come to bed, John. I wish we'd stayed in town and never even seen this ranch. If you could only see it the way I do. Just one good harvest. Oh, I wish you'd stop saying that. Wouldn't be any different than it is now. You'd still be spending all the daytime in the orchards or with the stock and your nights sitting over books trying to outguess the markets or the weather or wondering how many carloads of boxes you should order. Next time, Bert Kenny comes around with his catalog. Boxes for crops that never come in. You wonder why I've grown to hate this place. When I see you turning into a stoop-shouldered old man with the worries of it. When I see myself getting old before I'm 30 with the loneliness of the place. No one for me to talk to but Jim Littlehorse and a dirty old elm tree behind the house. Marriage isn't meant for life like this, John. I'm sick of this place. And what it's doing to both of us. When this dry spell breaks, it'll change all that. When the dry spell breaks, the rain won't change a thing. I hope it never comes if it means we'll stay here all our lives. I mean it. If it means we'll have to stay, I pray it never rains. A driving, super-saturating rain beats down on four worn but disbelieving Californians, while snow plows push their 10-foot shares through drifts on Donner Pass. Nevada's getting wetter by the minute. And the Salt Lake Airport Tower warns its pilots to expect inclement weather. There's promise of a harvest moving eastward. And a man in San Luis standing in the moonlight doesn't see the halo around the moon or feel the gentle shifting of the breeze. And God, please. Please don't let her pray against us. She really wants to move out. I'll try to figure some way. But please let her see the place look good just for one season. Oh, hello, Jim. Come on in. Why, be feet now. OK. Run my boy alone to keep it company, Ms. Farrell. Hello, Bill. Hello, Ms. Farrell. I'm so glad you brought him, Jim. You'll see she won't get along so many youngsters. You bet. Kept coffee, Jim. Oh, we just finished breakfast. Thanks anyway. Bet Bill could put away a few hotcakes. Think he could, Bill? Well? Oh, no, Mrs. Farrell. We don't want you going to any trouble. Pah. Oh, no, it won't hurt him, Jim. Wouldn't be a bit of trouble. Next to my husband, Bill's my favorite man anyway. Well? Thanks, Pop. Can I help, Ms. Farrell? Come ahead. See how the white man corrupts the Indian? That won't hurt him a bit. Say, Johnny, have you, uh, have you taken a look at the sky this morning? Oh, look like rain. No, I don't think so. But anyway, it's an overcast, and that's a good sign. Overcast? Come on, let's take a look. Wish I'd have taken a look at the moon last night when I got home. But I was a tired eye. Yeah. Yeah, it could be rain, but ring around the moon is always a good sign. It means the dust in the air is collecting moisture. When it collects enough. I heard it forecast, Jim. Heard it from Trinidad. Be snow in the Rockies, but that won't help much now. Didn't say about us, or if they did, I didn't hear it. What are you two talking about? Don't want to get your hopes up, Mrs. Farrell? Oh. Talking about the weather. You know what they say? Only two kind of people try to out-guess Colorado weather, fools and tourists. So I guess we'd better stop guessing, because we sure aren't tourists. So maybe sometimes we wish we were. Come on, Jim. Let's take another look at that pump. Hi, goodness. What are you doing out there? It's so much cooler here on the porch. I was just looking at your tree. Wish we had a tree like that over at our place. That dirty old alem. A little water, and it should be a fine tree. You know something? What? I bet if you tied a couple of ropes on that big limb, you could make a fine swing. Here, want to help me shell these peas? Sure. We'll put them in this cooking pan and put the empties in this paper bag. OK. If we had a swing in that tree, do you suppose you'd ever use it? Me? Shucks, no. I wouldn't play in a swing. Well, I'm too old. But Mark would play in it. He's only six. I'd bring him over myself so he could use it. Maybe when he gets a little older, we'd even build him a tree house. Oh, we might. Oh, no, no, no, Bill, no. You don't rip the pods open with a pen knife when you shell peas. See, you just pop the sides with your fingers like that. And you push the peas out with your thumb like this. I can do that. Just pop, push, and splatter. That's right. Pop, push, and. Hey, are you feeling all right, Ms. Farrell? Yes, I'm just a little dizzy, that's all. Gee. Getting awfully warm this afternoon, isn't it? Yeah. Saundra not was yesterday. It was a little breeze yesterday. Pop says that might be a good sign, because there's always supposed to be a little quiet spell before it rains. Oh, he does, huh? Guess that'd be a pretty good thing. I suppose it would be for most people. It's what everybody's been praying for, Pop says. He says the folks in San Luis Valley are raising such a ruckus in heaven that, well, that God ought to make it rain like everything. Bill. Huh? I suppose there was someone praying for the rain to stay away. Oh, nobody'd do that. But suppose there was somebody with a good reason who tried to lead a good life and had never really asked for anything before. Wouldn't God hear that person, too? Yeah. I guess he'd have to if he was going to be God. I guess he'd have to hear everybody. Then it'd be somebody who didn't get what they prayed for. Well, he'd probably make it up to him. Make it up to him? I'm sure he could give him something better. Maybe something so good they haven't even asked about it. Gee, that sure would be a swell tree for a swing. For Mark. Yeah, he'd like it. He did make him laugh. Suppose you'd bring your sisters over, too, if we had one. Bring my sisters? But they're girls. Well, I'm a girl. Well, yeah, but you're different, Mrs. Farrell. Different, huh? Oh, I don't know. Just different, I guess. Don't you like your sisters, Bill? Oh, I like them, all right. But they always want to play girls' games. My little brother, Mark, he'll be grown up in a couple of years. He's six now. When he gets to be eight, Pop says he can go with us when we go fishing. And then when he catches on about the water and learns how to swim, me and him can go alone. Well, we'll have a lot of fun together when he gets old enough. Gee, I wish he wasn't so young. Bill, don't you wish sometimes that you lived in the city, where there are other little boys and lots of things to do? In the city? Yeah. Oh, gee, Mrs. Farrell, I don't see why anyone would want to live in the city when they can live here. I sure wouldn't want Mark to have to grow up in the city. No? Oh, he's only a baby, ma'am. This is the best place in the whole world for babies. But gee, two years. You know something, Mrs. Farrell? No. A fella can get awful tired of waiting. I know what you mean, Bill. I feel like I can get awful tired of waiting. A little time to get up there if she's pulling any water at all. What do you think, Jim? I think maybe the water tables drop lower than where this pump can reach it. Well, no more irrigating. Might not be. Give her a few seconds. Given any more thought to sullen? Wait, if there was anything down there, it'd be up here by this time. Jim, I've got nothing left to sell. That's between you and me and the bank. That freeze-out last year just about finished me. We're going to have a dry-out this year. Well, you'll be getting new neighbors. Anything I can do, Johnny? No, I guess not. One good season would pull me out. Unless I get it. Does the wife know? No. No, I haven't had the heart to tell her. Wait. Listen. Hear anything? Sounded like. Mr. Farrell! Mr. Farrell! Come quick, Mr. Farrell! What's wrong, son? It's Mrs. Farrell. We were just sitting on the porch when she just sobbed and fell over. Keeping them so long in there. You'd at least come out and tell me what's going on. Hold your horses, boy. You know doctors. Well, Mr. Farrell. Sue, you all right? Oh, of course I'm all right. Nothing at all to be alarmed about. Yeah, just kind of worried, Doc. Honey, if I thought the place was really making you sick, I'd have been. She's as healthy as a horse. Just a combination of nerves and the hot weather. Not uncommon at all for a woman in her condition to have a fainting spell. Her condition? Johnny, I'm going to have a baby. All in the San Luis Valley, a steady, saturating rain that fills the soil with moisture and in falling washes all things fresh and clean. And in the Rocky Mountains, snow is swirling down to large itself among the pines, where it will stay until spring warmth turns it into water and sends it in a million small cascades to replenish water tables on the plains. Yes, San Luis has its rain for two nights and a day. Hey, hon, should you be out here with only your robe and slippers? I mean, in your condition, I don't know. Johnny, it's a long time before we'll have to be that careful. I guess you're right. Just smell that air. Never see a place looking so green and good. Oh, it's something to see, all right. Kind of makes you stop and think. I don't see why anyone would want to live in the city when they can live out here. This is just about the best place in the whole world for babies, ma'am. What are you thinking about, Sue? What am I thinking about? Oh, I was thinking about that elm tree. You know, I'll bet if you tied a couple of ropes to that big limb, you could make a fine swing. The storm has gone away from San Luis Valley, moved on perhaps to help Nebraska's wheat, despised the soil for planting in Missouri, or turned an Appalachian fire into steam. And it's tempered in its journey from the sea. No more thunderbolts, unless it's saving up a couple for the farmers of the Middle West who wouldn't think a storm was worth its salt unless it showed a little fight. It's moving on. And every place it goes, it gives new life to growing things, as surely as God made it for a reason. And now, friends, to speak for all of us who appear on Family Theater each week, Miss Loretta Young. Thank you, Richard. Family Theater, as you know, is devoted to furthering the very wholesome, very necessary practice of family prayer. And we who appear on the program are very grateful for the opportunity of helping to advance such a worthy cause. But the acting, the writing of scripts and special music, the direction, and all the other work that goes into each program's presentation would count for very little, if it were not for one thing, a good medium of presentation. We feel that we have the best in the vast number of stations in the largest radio network in the world, the Mutual Broadcasting System. And that's why we've asked Mr. Thomas F. O'Neill, Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Mutual Broadcasting System, to be our guest this evening. Mr. O'Neill, I know I speak on behalf of the more than 300 stars who have appeared on Family Theater during the last four years when I say our thanks to you and to the Mutual Network for making Family Theater possible. Thank you, Loretta. But I feel the situation should really be reversed, that we of the Mutual Network should be thanking you, the stars of stage and screen, for helping us to live up to our obligations. For it's very definitely a network's obligation to broadcast in the interest of the public. It is the most vital duty of the radio broadcaster to respond to the needs of the listener. I hope it can never be said that Mutual does less than its best to ensure the radio audience of anything but the finest in public service broadcasting. In presenting Family Theater each week, we of Mutual feel a deep sense of gratitude to the stars who give unselfishly of their time for the purpose of promoting our nation's unity by helping to strengthen the basic unit of any nation, the family. For we of the Mutual Broadcasting System are also of the firm conviction that the family that prays together stays together. More things are wrought by prayer and this world dreams of. From Hollywood Family Theater has brought you Talk About the Weather, starring Richard Whitmark and Jean Cagney. Loretta Young was your hostess. Mr. Thomas F. O'Neill, Chairman of the Board of the Mutual Broadcasting System was tonight's special guest. John Stevenson was featured as John. Others in our cast were Ken Christie, Michael Edwards and Jim Nussar. The script was written by Robert Hugh O'Sullivan with music composed and conducted by Harry Zimmerman. And was directed for Family Theater by Joseph F. Mansfield. This series of Family Theater broadcasts is made possible by the thousands of you who feel the need for this type of program. By the Mutual Network, which responds to this need and by the hundreds of stars of state screen and radio who give so unselfishly of their time and talent to appear on our Family Theater stage. To them and to you, our humble thanks. This is Tony LaFranco expressing the wish of Family Theater that the blessings of God may be upon you and your home and inviting you to join us next week at this time when Family Theater will present Audrey Totter and Lyle Becker in Wherever You Go. Join us, won't you? Portions of tonight's program will transcribe. This is the Mutual Broadcasting System.