“Hi!” he shouted, as if Hi were on the other side of a forty-acre lot.
Hi’s voice answered close at hand, sleepily. “Yep!”
“Hi, I believe I’ve gone blind. I can’t see nothing—not a blamed thing.”
There was a short silence.
“I can’t neither,” cried Hi. “Maybe we’re both blind.”
“It’s being so hungry, I reckon,” said Jim. “Don’t you think a fellah could get so run down from eatin’ nothing that he’d go blind?”
“I reckon he might,” sighed Hi.
Silence fell again. They could hear the needles as they fell from the trees, the low whispering of the spring, and the far-away sound of wind or rain, they were not sure which.
Then suddenly they knew that they were not blind. All the world was lit up—lit up terribly and then engulfed in darkness again. Then the thunder came, clamoring and roaring about them. They were mountain boys and they had heard thunder roar and rumble over the hills many times, but had it ever had such a frightful bellow as this? It kept on and on and before the first volley had quite died, again the world was lighted with that fiery light—that forked flame—and again the voice of the sky awoke the thousand voices of the hills.
“Oh, gosh!” groaned Hi.