They cuddled close, their arms around each other, and pressed their faces close to the pane. The yellow sand was driven across the prairie like a sheet of rain. The Major's big car shuddered with each fresh blast, and the little Swallow seemed to cower close to the ground. Continuous sheets of lightning made the night as bright as day. Over the whine and whistle of the wind they could hear the distant rumble of the thunder. The room was full of dust, driven through the cracks of the window. Their throats were choked with it. The wind blew harder and harder; the lightning grew brighter, slashing the black sky with great gashes of blinding light.
Bill looked sober. "Gee, it is fierce!" he said in an awed tone. "Where is dad all this time?"
"In his room sound asleep," said Mrs. Sherman. "I suppose he is used to sights like this. Wasn't it nice of Oklahoma to stage such a wonderful sight for us? I wouldnt have missed it for anything."
"It is going to rain," said Bill, again looking out. "The thunder is growing louder and louder. Did you ever see anything like the glare the lightning makes?"
All at once Mrs. Sherman clutched Bill and pointed out.
"Oh, look, look!" she cried.
Bill followed the direction of her finger, and saw a small rabbit running before the blast. He was going at a rate that caused his pop eyes to pop worse than ever. As he skimmed along, he made the mistake of trying to turn. In a second he was being rushed along sidewise, hopping frantically up and down in order to keep on his feet, but unable to turn back again or to stop. Bill and his mother laughed until they cried as the little rabbit was hustled out of sight around the end of the students' quarters.
The lightning grew worse and occasionally balls of flame shot earthward. The thunder rolled in a deafening roar. Then suddenly the wind stopped—stopped so suddenly and completely that Bill jumped and his mother said, "Goodness me!" in a small, scared voice.
There was a long pause as though Nature was calling attention to her freaks, and then down came the rain. It came in rivers, sheets, floods. The roads ran yellow mud; the creek over the bluff commenced to boil. The sparse dwarfed trees that clung to the sides of the gullies bent under the weight of falling water.
It poured and poured and poured.