I lay and watched the sky, scanning the clouds for a certitude of a dry night. A great war was going on between the forces of the clear sky and of the clouds. There was a party of skirmishers advancing from the south-west. There was a long array of clouds in the north and in the south, and the main army lay heavy and invincible in the north-west. But the clear sky scattered the enemy wherever it encountered them, and even forced the main army to take up a new position. The camp of the clouds was made far away, and lights came out in their leaguer.
The night became silent and brilliant and perfect, and I lay with my eyes open, and did not look, but just saw....
I slept. Whilst my eyes were closed there was a great night attack, and when I woke again I found the armies of the clear sky completely routed. There was a shower of rain, and I jumped up and tripped along to the church. The door was open. I struck a match and saw all the pews and prayer-books and hymn-sheets, and away in the shadows the platform and the pulpit.
But the shower ceased. I reflected that if heavy rain came on I could easily come into shelter, so I returned to my hay-spread, and lay down again and watched the renewed battle in the sky.
A desperate rally! One star, two stars were shining, and round about them a great stand was being made. They fought lustily. They seemed to be gaining ground. Yes. Three, four, five stars showed, six.... I fell asleep again, knowing that the side I favoured would win. When I wakened next it was to greet the great General coming from the east in all his war-paint, and hung all over with silver medals. A glorious day followed.
I spent a morning by the clear St. Joseph River. On the road to Middlebury wild raspberries abounded. I could have picked a pound or so of berries along the road. Raspberry bushes occur in many places, but I've seen few raspberries hitherto. That is because the great friends of the raspberries live so near—human boys and girls—and they are always taking the raspberries to school, to church, to the corn-field. If they are going home they insist on taking the little raspberries home too, to the distress of fathers and mothers sometimes, for the raspberries know how to disagree with the children upon occasion, especially the young ones.
There were not many farm-houses about here, but at one of them I was given a pot full of ripe cherries, and made a "smash" of them, and ate them with milk and sugar.
A motorist took me along a dozen miles in a bouncing, petrol-spurting runabout car, a Dutchman, who paid me the compliment of saying I spoke very grammatically for a foreigner.
There was a thundershower in the afternoon. In the evening I obtained permission to sleep in a barn, and the farmer talked to me as I lay in the straw. There had been a runaway team the day before, and his neighbour's bay mare had twenty-four stitches in her now, and he didn't reckon she'd be much more good.