72 LOCUSTS AND WILD HONEY 



I think rain is as necessary to the mind as to 

 vegetation. Who does not suffer in his spirit in a 

 drought and feel restless and unsatisfied? My very 

 thoughts become thirsty and crave the moisture. It 

 is hard work to be generous, or neighborly, or patri- 

 otic in a dry time, and as for growing in any of the 

 finer graces or virtues, who can do it ? One's very 

 manhood shrinks, and, if he is ever capable of a mean 

 act or of narrow views, it is then. 



Oh the terrible drought! When the sky turns to 

 brass; when the clouds are like withered leaves; 

 when the sun sucks the earth's blood like a vampire; 

 when rivers shrink, streams fail, springs perish; 

 when the grass whitens and crackles under your 

 feet; when the turf turns to dust; when the fields 

 are like tinder; when the air is the breath of an 

 oven; when even the merciful dews are withheld, 

 and the morning is no fresher than the evening; 

 when the friendly road is a desert, and the green 

 woods like a sick-chamber; when the sky becomes 

 tarnished and opaque with dust and smoke; when 

 the shingles on the houses curl up, the clapboards 

 warp, the paint blisters, the joints open; when the 

 cattle rove disconsolate and the hive-bee comes home 

 empty ; when the earth gapes and all nature looks 

 widowed, and deserted, and heart-broken, in such 

 a time, what thing that has life does not sympathize 

 and suffer with the general distress? 



The drought of the summer and early fall of 1876 

 was one of those severe stresses of weather that make 

 the oldest inhabitant search his memory for a par- 



