The storm passed, but we got drenched to our necks as we walked through dense undergrowth downward to a strikingly prominent clump of gigantic pines which from aloft we had chosen as harbourage for the night. These lifted their fine forms from immemorial heaps of old pine mould, soft and brown and porous. There was a stream near them and we lit a great fire by the water’s edge and hung out a line to dry blankets, coats, pants, socks, and all we possessed.
The heat flew up in armfuls of smoke, in showers of sparks, up to our sagging shirts and heavy blankets. Sparks in hundreds lighted on them, and went out or burned small holes. We walked about like savages the while, wresting dead wood to build ever higher the fire. I pulled down a branch with a tree-wasp’s nest upon it, and brought a cloud of wasps after our bodies, and I paid the penalty in a sting. Thus, however, we dried everything, and we were able at last to make a dry bed in a wet place. But rain came on again at night, and in the intense darkness under the giant pines we lay and heard it, and slept, and then waked to hear it again.
If it rains in the town and if you get caught in the rain
And soaked to the bone—ah what a calamity!
You must have a hot bath, and take some hot toddy;
You must swallow an aspirin and sleep under blankets,
Whilst your clothes on two chairs by the fire will be drying;
You must put on dry clothes in the morning.
It’s different in the mountains,