She consented silently, and I crushed a path for her through the ripe grain until we reached the rick. The rain was beginning to pelt us sharply. Furiously I went to work, tearing out straw by the handfuls, armfuls, and in a few seconds I had excavated a hole large enough for Salome to enter in a crouching posture.
"Get in!" I commanded. I think she little liked the tone of authority I had assumed, for if there ever was a petted being, it was she, yet she obeyed, and cuddled up in her refuge out of reach of the driving rain.
I sat down by the side of her covert, and rested my back against the rick. I also turned up my coat-collar, and pulled my hat well down upon my head; but I soon saw that a good soaking was in store for me.
"Why don't you come in, too?" she asked in guileless innocence. "I can make room for you, and you will surely get wet out there. Aren't you afraid of rheumatism? Father has it if he gets his toe damp."
"I'll get along all right," I replied. "There doesn't much rain strike me, and I never had the rheumatism in my life."
I didn't tell her of the trouble with my breathing, and the attack that would be almost sure to follow this exposure.
We both grew quiet after this, and listened to the swish of the rain and the mighty howling of the wind. It had grown very dark, and the air was chilly. The lightning was incessant, and traced zigzag pathways of fire across the sombre heavens. The thunder was terrific, and often shook the solid earth. I asked Salome if she was not afraid, but she laughed from her snug retreat, and said she loved it all. What manner of girl was this, who feared nothing, and who loved Nature even when she was at war with herself?
The strife of the elements ceased as suddenly as it had begun. The thunder rumbled away in the east; the rain stopped falling, and a rift of blue showed through the dun masses overhead. This was followed by a broad shaft of sunlight, which struck on the golden sea around us with a shimmering radiance. I jokingly called Salome a "hayseed" when she emerged from her shelter, for her brown hair was sprinkled with wisps of straw. She ignored the epithet in her solicitation for my welfare, and proceeded straightway to place her hand upon my shoulders and back to see if I was wet.
"You're soaking!" she declared in genuine alarm. "You must have a hot whiskey toddy and six grains of quinine the minute you get home!"
I made a wry face; but she only shook her head in a determined way, and announced that she would see to it in person. As for herself, she was as dry as a butterfly which had just emerged from a chrysalis, and I congratulated myself upon the care I had taken of her. But before we reached home she was in a plight almost equal to my own, for the wind had blown the wheat across the path, and it was impossible for me to remove it entirely.