JUNE RAINS— HAYING—HARVEST 213 



Dick Ryan and that bunch, so I guess it will be 

 wise to get him to come on in here same time. I'll 

 take a team for you on the round, and they'll all 

 come back and help you out." 



" Do," I assented. " Make the usual arrange- 

 ments and tell me what they are, only be sure and 

 let me know a day or so before when the threshers 

 are coming." 



" That's all right. I guess I shall bring back the 

 team most nights. Old horses want good stable 

 this time of year, the nights begin to get cold." 



He brought me a load of wood before he went, 

 and that afternoon I was again alone, but this time 

 in tune with things in general and absolutely 

 independent. I could hitch up a team, haul water, 

 buck wood, harrow. I could milk the hard cow 

 with patience and Molly with ease. My cooking 

 chore was at an end ; I need no more wrestle with 

 the washing of towels. I was most easefully and 

 blessedly and thankfully alone. A soft sweet rain 

 came sweeping up from the West. I sat in a deck- 

 chair on the veranda and watched it in sweetest 

 idleness as it dripped on to my flower beds, in which 

 nasturtiums, mignonette, and love-in-a-mist already 

 flourished amazingly. And there came to me with 

 the silence and the softly falling rain of that restful 

 afternoon a deep and abiding love of solitude which, 

 like the consoling breath of the soil, cleanses the 

 channels of one's understanding to sun-clear vision, 

 discovering all the arrogance and unkindness in 

 criticism, revealing the illusion of difliculty, proving 

 one's anger and wrath and righteous indignation and 

 clamour for justice occasionally funny and always 

 unworth while. Like rain falling softly on the 



