“I can’t explain it very clearly,” replied Mrs. Page, “but I know it is so. I suppose there is something peculiar in the state of the atmosphere, just before a storm, which makes boiling water evaporate, or fly off into steam, more rapidly than at other times.”
The sun rose clear, the next morning, and the children laughed at Mrs. Page for her prediction of rain. But in an hour or two, clouds began to gather, and early in the afternoon a heavy rain commenced. The children came home from school, wet, disappointed, and cross. Every thing seemed to go wrong with them, the rest of the day. Kate had wet her feet, and a grumbling tooth-ache admonished her that she had taken cold. Otis had left his new kite out doors, and found the paper upon it reduced to a handful of pulp, when he came home. The cows chose the luckless day to take a stroll into the neighbors’ enclosures, and led Ronald on a long and provoking tramp through the wet grass and soft, spongy lowlands, in search of them. Nor did Oscar escape his share of the ill-luck which seemed to brood over the household; for while milking, one of the cows, nettled perhaps by her long walk and the unpleasant state of the weather, gave him a slap across his eyes with her wet tail that almost took away his sight for a few minutes, at the same time leaving upon his face an embrocation that was not exactly calculated to soothe his ruffled feelings.
“What is the matter? have you all got the blues?” inquired Marcus, at the tea-table, as he observed how gloomy and silent the younger portion of the family appeared.
“O dear, I should think this horrid weather was enough to give any one the blues,” exclaimed Kate.
“It doesn’t affect me very unpleasantly,” replied Marcus.
“Well, you don’t care anything about the husking party, I suppose,” said Kate.
“Oh, it’s the disappointment, and not the weather, that troubles you,” observed Marcus.
“Not altogether that, but I think it’s too bad we can’t go to-night,” replied Kate.
“It is too bad that all the affairs of this world can’t be ordered to suit your convenience,” added Marcus.
“No, I don’t wish that; but when I make up my mind to go any where, I do want to go,” said Kate.