During that spring there came a scourge of locusts. They ate up the trees and all green things. Wise old women declared them a sign of coming disaster—disaster enough they were of themselves! With their strident cries they drowned the prayers of the Righteous who sat in meeting praying to be delivered from them and their consequences.
One day at noon a darkness fell over everything; cocks crew; pigs squealed; cows came home, lowing; dogs howled, dismally; and cats mewed, distressingly.
Morgan, sensitive to all influences, shivered and moaned, softly.
One of the most fearsome calamities in the history of Vermont was, indeed, about to descend.
Masses of clouds rose and blotted out the sun; the storm came closer; thunder crashed; the wind howled; rain began to fall.
Day after day lightning flashed, thunder jarred the earth, and the rain fell unceasingly. There seemed no end to it!
Creek and river beds lost all identity; mountains were obscured in the downpour. In lowlands, beaver meadows and swampy places the water rose, and kept rising. Mountain streams became torrents, creeks became rivers.
It was a deluge!
Birds, drenched through their feathers, starved and fell to the earth, chilled to death; insects were washed out of the air; late-hatched broods of wild ducks were drowned and the eggs of wild-fowl floated on the surface of the waters.
Weasels, stoats and such creatures as could swim reached higher ground and for a short time saved their lives. Cattle, which had sought slightly dryer quarters on hillocks, were drowned as they called aloud, piteously, for help. Field-mice, rabbits and moles were suffocated in the rain-sodden earth. Foxes climbed into bushes to await the going down of the waters and were drowned, or starved to death, waiting.