NORTH SHORE BREEZE 
“IN THE RAIN” 
I sometimes think there is no surer 
way to bring soft airs and sunny. skies 
than to write a verse or paragraph 
which shall give out a damp and dis- 
mal wail, and be obviously called 
forth by the inclement weather. I 
have never known it to fail. Such a 
production, when carefully copied and 
mailed to an editor has plenteous 
power to bring back the sun. Ties 
my last resort. Perhaps there is in 
such a commonplace statement some 
ground of truth. “It is always 
darkest before the dawn” and ‘The 
longest lane must have a turning.” 
-So that when one who is absolutely 
nothing if not a child of nature feels 
that at last the very confines of 
patience have been reached, very 
likely it is time for a change. I 
know of nothing that is our natural 
birthright which can so thwart and 
disappoint, surprise and torment, as 
weather. We set all our sails for 
clear skies. Jack sits majestically 
a-top of his watering cart, and then it 
rains, and though we have a whole 
_soul’s plans at stake, it rains on re- 
gardless, till we seem to be but pup- 
pets of the Almighty. 
Pondering long and always cheer- 
fully I have at length hit upon some- 
thing in the way of a remedy. You 
have all heard of the man who stakes 
a certain sum on both sides of a con- 
test, that he may win either way. In 
some such manner we may circumvent 
the Evil One, in the form of cold, per- 
sistent rain, by seeking out an invest- 
ment that requires rain for its suc- 
cess and nourishment, take a few 
shares in that and let it rain. By 
way of suggestion I will tell how I 
found an interest of this remedial 
sort. It has come about that upona 
certain spot of earth where the Lord 
did not see fit to plant trees, | have 
decreed that trees shall grow. The 
particular trees about which my hopes 
are centered are of the genus known 
as “arbor vite,’’ hardy enough, even 
for New England's climate, when 
once started growing, but absolutely 
dependent upon rain for their rooting 
time. So those ten little trees have 
gone marching through my dreams 
like soldiers clad in green, and waking 
in what the poet calls “the dead, un- 
happy night,” to the musical patter 
of rain on our tin roof, 1 drowsily 
murmur “my trees,” and sleep again. 
In the morning I look through a west- 
ern windowpane, to where a_ bewil- 
dered weather vane tears madly round 
and round, seeking a repose it 1s never 
to find, and when I mark the “E” 
still triumphant, and know that it may 
rain all day, 1 say ““O well, my trees 
? 
need water.’”’ Then when the sun 
comes out and a blustering northwest 
wind dries up the street and Jack 
mounts the watering-cart for his 
‘ceaseless round, I wonder if my trees 
are thirsty and if they will turn yellow 
and die because I have snatched them 
in helpless infancy, and transplanted 
them to a bleak hillside whose prime- 
val soil bears everything green and 
lovely, but trees. Though closely in 
league with nature, I have still the 
purpose to overcome her and prove 
my human superiority, and because 
trees have never grown on a spot does 
not prove that they never will. 
I presume there are other devices 
beside trees that will aid us in this 
one-sided struggle with perverse ele- 
ments. One way is to refuse to pro- 
vide one stitch of thin clothing till the 
first of July. We tried that, also, this 
year. In so doing, and _ planning 
other uses for a limited income, you 
will wake each morning with a sicken- 
ing fear lest the wind has veered to 
the south, and you with “nothing to 
wear.” Doubtless there are many 
plans that may be adopted for taking 
a New England spring by the horns, 
so to speak. 
Certain it is, that mankind is still 
in his atmospheric infancy, despite 
the - gyrations of ambitious airships 
and an occasional artificial thunder 
shower. To cause a shower is not a 
great stretch of the imagination, but 
to stop a well-developed rain storm 
with a lusty east wind, is a real poser, 
and we have much to learn. 
A man, an author whose logic I 
adore and whose name | must not 
mention here ‘‘because of an old 
shame before the holy ideal” has said 
that a remedy for the injustice and in- 
equalities of nature which are still 
rampant, in spite of man’s apparent 
superiority, may be found in the pos- 
sibility of nature’s final and complete 
subjugation by this creature of her 
latest handiwork. In my _ philoso- 
pher’s own words I read ‘‘In our old 
days, under the sway of new scientific 
knowledge, we instinctively saw man 
in the perspective of nature, and then 
man seemed almost an afterthought 
of nature. But having been _pro- 
duced late in her material history, and 
gifted with a foresight that distin- 
guished him from all else in her 
scheme, his own evolution gathered 
thereby that speed which is so _per- 
plexing a contrast to the inconceiv- 
able slowness of the orbing of stars 
and the building of continents. He 
has used his powers of prescience for 
his own ends, but fanciful as the 
thought is, it may happen that 
through his control of elemental 
forces and his acquaintance with in- 
finite space, he should reach the point 
of applying prescience in nature’s own 
material frame, and wield the world 
for the better accomplishment of her 
apparent ends— that though unimag- 
inable now, would constitute the true 
polarity of her blind and half chaotic 
motions —chaotic in intelligence, I 
mean, and to the moral reason.” 
Even so, a day may be approaching 
when the clouds shall be emptied at 
our pleasure, and the “Heavens de- 
clare the Glory of God” not only to 
man but through his co-operation. In 
the bible stories of Elija and Noah, 
we have the extremes of drought and 
deluge, and I think most of us would 
prefer a Venetian landscape to the 
blasting, withering drought that is 
possible. Not far from the spot 
where my little trees luxuriate I have 
found a spring that actually gushes 
from the rock. It is, I think, on the 
land offered our city as a park or play 
ground. I am reminded of the psalm- 
ist’s lines, ‘Where streams of living 
waters flow,” and to my mind there is 
endless association connected with a 
natural water supply of this kind, as 
we think back perhaps to prehistoric 
days, when the Red Man andhis four- 
footed friends followed a well worn 
path to the spring, and drew from its 
cooling depths life and strength. 
Abundance of water and abundance 
of life seem naturally to go together, 
and “He maketh his rain to fall alike ~ 
on the just and on the unjust” is no 
less true today than in days of yore. 
KaTE RESTIEAUX. 
Morningside, 
Beverly, June 8, 1907. 
Real Gstate 
Hnd Improvements 
Elizabeth S. Tappan of Newbury- 
port, as guardian of Elizabeth S. 
Tappan, conveys to Mary F. and 
Fannie Bartlett of Boston, for the 
sum of $3050, land on Sea street, 
Manchester, 384.5 by 300.95 feet. 
MILLINERY ANNOUNCEMENT. 
Owing to press of business 
Mrs. A. E. MARSHALL 
announces that until further notice she will 
close her Millinery Parlors every day at six 
o’clock excepting Saturdays, on which even- 
ing she will be pleased to see her patrons ‘as 
usual. 
Mrs. A. E. MARSHALL, 
31 Central St., 
Manchester 
