So together they looked in every crevice but not a bit of the little white blossom did they see.
Up, and up, and up they went. Some were tired and waited for the rest to climb and return. Some even went back down the mountainside. But when the top was reached, what a wonderful view spread out before them! Mountains and lakes and streams; villages and cities and lonely farms; beauty and calmness and majesty, all seemed to flood in at once on the minds and hearts of those who looked.
After they had rested a while, the old man lightly touched the hand of the girl and said,
“I have heard it said that one of my blossoms has been found on that cliff not far away. Will you come with me to see?”
So they began to search the cliff; then they found a hidden cave and explored that; Marcia heard a tiny stream of water trickling in the cave, and when she had found the water, she found also, close to the water’s edge, a beautiful clump of waxy white blossoms, sweet and fragrant, and hanging tightly to the rock.
“Oh! oh! Come, sir,” called the girl. “I am sure these are what you seek. Oh, how beautiful they are!” And they stooped to gather them.
But just at that moment a flash of lightning lighted the cave and the thunder rolled. In a moment the rain was coming in torrents, and the noise of the thunder 49 as it rolled from cliff to cliff was terrifying. A giant pine tree which stood just before the entrance of the cave was rent from top to bottom and went crashing down the mountainside. The noise of the wind and storm was deafening. Pale and trembling, the girl pushed farther and farther into the cave till, crouching down, she touched something cool. It was the little white flowers.
They were not afraid. The rain might fall as hard as it would but it would not blast their beauty. They were protected by a bit of overhanging rock. The lightning might flash about the cave but it was calm inside. Who had made the tiny blossoms to grow here in the rock, protected from storm and blast? God! She, too, was being cared for while her companions might be in the fury of the storm. Who was caring for her? Her friend? No, he was interested in something at the entrance of the cave. God was caring for her even as he cared for the little blossom.
“Come, Marcia, come and watch the storm,” called the professor. “I have never seen such a beautiful one. Isn’t it strange that that electricity was all there in the clouds as we came up the mountain though we knew it not? I love to watch a storm for it shows so clearly the power and majesty of our God. Watch the trees bend with the wind! Listen to the rocks send back the sound of the thunder! See the little bird on yonder nest snuggling close to keep the little ones safe! And see, far away, the sun shining on the little village of the plain. We are in the storm, child, yet we are safe and sheltered.”
With her hand held fast in that of her old friend, the fear gradually died away, and when the storm was over she, too, was glad she had seen from the mountaintop the wonder of a mountain storm. 50