IS IT GOING TO RAIN? 85 



the fair, — not a speck or film in all the round of the 

 sky. Where have all the clouds and vapors gone 

 to so suddenly? was my mute inquiry, but I sus- 

 pected they were plotting together somewhere behind 

 the horizon. The sky was a deep ultramarine blue; 

 the air so transparent that distant objects seemed 

 near, and the afternoon shadows were sharp and 

 clear. At night the stars were unusually numerous 

 and bright (a sure sign of an approaching storm). 

 The sky was laid bare, as the tidal wave empties the 

 shore of its water before it heaps it up upon it. A 

 violent storm of wind and rain the next day followed 

 this delusive brightness. So the weather, like hu- 

 man nature, may be suspiciously transparent. A 

 saintly day may undo you. A few clouds do not 

 mean rain; but when there are absolutely none, 

 when even the haze and filmy vapors are suppressed 

 or held back, then beware. 



Then the weather-wise know there are two kinds 

 of clouds, rain-clouds and wind-clouds, and that the 

 latter are always the most portentous. In summer 

 they are black as night; they look as if they would 

 blot out the very earth. They raise a great dust, 

 and set things flying and slamming for a moment, 

 and that is all. They are the veritable wind-bags 

 of ^olus. There is something in the look of rain- 

 clouds that is unmistakable, — a firm, gray, tightly 

 woven look that makes you remember your umT)rella. 

 Not too high nor too low, not black nor blue, but 

 the form and hue of wet, unbleached linen. You 

 Bee the river water in them; they are heavy-laden, 



