WEATHER AND THE SKY 213 



its great white battle smoke, the upper edges of its 

 clouds feathery and vague so that they melt in to the silver 

 gray sky, and then pushing on to our nearer peaks, 

 and finally sweeping down upon us and hurling in our 

 faces the first cool, stinging shot of its beneficent shrap- 

 nel. I love to watch some great thunderhead, dark as 

 a cannon's mouth, mass behind a steep, wooded moun- 

 tain wall, a cloud with an ominous glitter in its sharply 

 defined edges, edges so sharp at first that they would 

 seem almost cut out of sheet metal and laid against the 

 blue were it not for the fact that we are aware of the im- 

 mense aerial perspective behind them, between the 

 thunderhead and the roof of the sky. Against such a 

 cloud an ancient white birch will often stand out with 

 startling distinctness, like a white lightning stab. The 

 vast mass seems to swell and grow from within itself. 

 The ominously glittering rim moves up toward the sun, 

 crosses it, wipes half the light off the landscape; and then 

 suddenly, from the underside, comes the white mist of 

 the rain, obliterates the distant mountains, walks down 

 their slopes, marches up the valley, and we dash for 

 shelter, getting under the cover of veranda or barn, per- 

 haps, just as the great drops hit the drive, kicking up 

 little puffs of dust. 



I love and only too well, I fear to sit in my garden 

 summer house, forgetful of the task before me, and gaze 

 out on a summer day over the beds where the bees are 

 busy in the blue veronica and the goldfinches are sway- 



