Even as they looked up black clouds moved swiftly across the sky. They turned and looked toward the mountains behind them—the summits were shrouded in dense blackness; the whole countryside was being enveloped in a gloom like the gloom of late twilight. There was an ominous silence in the air, living things of the fields and woods scurried to shelter; only a solitary red-headed woodpecker tapped noisily upon a dead tree trunk.
Suddenly sharp flashes of lightning darted in zigzag rays through the gloom.
Phœbe gripped the side of the carriage. "The storm is following us," she said. "Look at the hills—they are black as night. Can we get home before the storm breaks over us?"
"Hardly. It travels faster than we can, and we still have four more miles to go."
The horse sniffed the air through inflated nostrils and sped unbidden over the country road. The lightning grew more vivid and blinding and darted among the hills with greater frequency; loud peals of thunder echoed and reëchoed among the mountains. Then the rain came. In great splashes, which increased rapidly, it poured its cool torrents upon the earth.
Phœbe laughed but David shook his head. "We'll have to stop some place till it's over. You're getting wet. I'll drive in this barnyard."
Amid the deafening crashes of thunder and the steady downpour of rain they ran through the barnyard and up the path that led to the house. As they stepped upon the porch a door was opened and a woman appeared.
"Why, come right in!" she greeted them. "This is a bad storm."
"If you don't mind," Phœbe began, but the woman was talkative and broke in, "Now, I just knowed there'd be company come to-day yet! This after when I dried the dishes I dropped a knife and fork and that's a sure sign. Mebbe you don't believe in signs?"
"They come true sometimes," said Phœbe.