IS IT GOING TO RAIN? 81 



What a creature of habit, too, Nature is as she ap- 

 pears in the* weather ! If she miscarry once she will 

 twice and thrice, and a dozen times. In a wet time 

 it rains to-day because it rained yesterday, and will 

 rain to-morrow because it rained to-day. Are the 

 crops in any part of the country drowning ? They 

 shall continue to drown. Are they burning up ? 

 They shall continue to burn. The elements get in 

 a rut and can't get out without a shock. I know a 

 farmer who, in a dry time, when the clouds gather 

 and look threatening, gets out his watering-pot at 

 once, because, he says, " it won't rain, and 't is an ex- 

 cellent time to apply the water." Of course, there 

 comes a time when the farmer is wrong, but he is 

 right four times out of five. 



But I am not going to abuse the weather ; rather 

 to praise it, and make some amends for the many 

 ill-natured tilings I have said within hearing of the 

 clouds, when I have been caught in the rain or been 

 parched and withered by the drought. 



When Mr. Fields's " Village Dogmatist " was 

 asked what caused the rain, or the fog, he leaned 

 upon his cane and answered with an air of profound 

 wisdom, that " when the atmosphere and hemi- 

 sphere come together it causes the earth to sweat, 

 and thereby produces the rain," or the fog, as the 

 case may be. The explanation is a little vague, as his 

 biographer suggests, but it is picturesque, and there 

 can be little doubt that two somethings do come in 

 contact that produce a sweating when it rains or is 

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