HOW THE RAIN CAME 



It was not the pallor of clouds, for there 

 was not even a cumulus thunder head 

 in sight, but the pallor that comes with 

 the wind that has a storm behind it, yet 

 is to blow itself out before the storm 

 arrives. 



The cuckoo, flitting, jerkily from one 

 thicket to the next, noted this pallor 

 from the corner of his eye and thence- 

 forth through the day croaked to him- 

 self as he went his caterpillar-hunting 

 rounds. " Clackity clack; tut, tut; cow, 

 cow, cow," he clucked musically, which 

 is his way of saying, " Oh dear, it is 

 going to rain and the caterpillars will 

 be all soggy." Jotham says the early 

 settlers out here in the Dorchester back- 

 woods taught the cuckoo to work for 

 them, but that he was so lazy that their 

 descendants, getting better help, gave it 

 up, and that the cuckoo soon forgot all 

 225 



