8 THE WORLD IN WHICH WE LIVE 



glad. The wilting flowers, with their drooping 

 leaves, straighten up. The birds twitter joyfully. 

 The cat and dog get up and stretch themselves and 

 come out of their shady corners. 



Then if it should rain, how welcome the shower is 

 and how the thirsty earth drinks up the water; how 

 the leaves of the trees glisten; how fresh the flowers 

 become after their bath; and how sweet the air 

 smells! Sometimes we think that we do not hke 

 rain. We hope that it will not rain and we even make 

 ourselves unhappy if it does. ' ' If only we might have 

 pleasant days always," we sigh. 



But think what it would mean to have pleasant 

 days always. There would be no pretty, white, 

 fleecy clouds scudding across the sky as if they were 

 playing tag. No great mounds of clouds piling up 

 from the horizon like huge masses of foam. No 

 beautiful sunrises, or sunsets painting all the sky in 

 gorgeous colors. And there would be no rain, of 

 course. 



But without rain what vshould we do? Where 

 would be our flowers, our grass, our shrubs and our 

 trees? Where would be our rivers, our lakes and the 

 vast ocean? And where indeed should we be without 

 anything to eat or drink? We could not live in the 

 world at all if the fleecy white clouds, or the thin, 

 gray clouds, or even those thick, black clouds did not 

 come just so often, and, shutting away the sun, give 

 us the rain that we ag^ everything else upon the 

 earth must have. ^ <"' 



You did not think that the clouds were so impor- 

 tant, did you? They seemed beautiful and strange 



