The warm night air had turned slightly colder. Connie, who was picking as fast as she could, felt a gust of cool wind on her neck.
Pulling her sweater closer about her, she glanced up into the sky. The black clouds were fairly boiling.
“The storm certainly is coming!” Mr. Williams said. “It’s not far off either!”
In the nearby trees, everyone began to strip even faster. No one took time to go back and forth to the shed.
Mr. Hooper himself collected the buckets.
“Good work!” he praised the Brownies and their fathers. “We may beat the storm yet, but it will be close.”
“How are the Mexican pickers doing?” Connie’s father inquired.
“They’ve gone at it with a will,” the orchard owner reported. “Never saw ’em strip trees so fast. If this storm just gives us a break, we’ll make it.”
The storm, however, drew closer and closer. Suddenly, the clouds overhead parted as a flash of lightning made the orchard as bright as day.