It is a long time since much rain fell. The ground is a little dry, the road is a good deal dusty. The garden bakes. Transplanted trees are thirsty. Wheels are shrinking and tires are looking dangerous. Men speculate on the clouds; they begin to calculate how long it will be, if no rain falls, before the potatoes will suffer; the oats, the grass, the corn—everything! To be sure, nothing is yet suffering; but then—

Rain, rain, rain! All day, all night, steady raining. Will it never stop? The hay is out and spoiling. The rain washes the garden. All things have drunk their fill. The springs revive, the meadows are wet; the rivers run discolored with soil from every hill.

Smoking cattle reek under the sheds. Hens, and fowl in general, shelter and plume. The sky is leaden. The clouds are full yet. The long fleece covers the mountains. The hills are capped in white. The air is full of moisture.

The wind roars down the chimney. The birds are silent. No insects chirp. Closets smell moldy. The barometer is clogged. We thump it, but it will not get up. It seems to have an understanding with the weather. The trees drip, shoes are muddy, carriage and wagon are splashed with dirt. Paths are soft.

So it is. When it is clear we want rain, and when it rains we wish it would shine. But after all, how lucky for grumblers that they are not allowed to meddle with the weather, and that it is put above their reach. What a scrambling, selfish, mischief-making time we should have, if men undertook to parcel out the seasons and the weather according to their several humors or interests!

If one will but look for enjoyment, how much there is in every change of weather. The formation of clouds—the various signs and signals, the uncertain wheeling and marching of the fleecy cohorts, the shades of light and gray in the broken heavens—all have their pleasure to an observant eye. Then come the wind gust, the distant dark cloud, the occasional fiery streak shot down through it, the run and hurry of men whose work may suffer!

Indeed, sir, your humble servant, even, was stirred up on the day after Fourth of July. The grass in the old orchard was not my best. Indeed, we grumbled at it considerably while it was yet standing. But being cut and the rain threatening it, one would have thought it gold by the nimble way in which we tried to save it!

Blessed be horse rakes! Once, half a dozen men with half a dozen rakes would have gone whisking up and down, thrusting out and pulling in the long-handled rakes with slow and laborious progress. But no more of that. See friend Turner, mounted on the wheeled horse rake, riding about as if for pleasure. It is easy times when men ride and horses rake. Meanwhile, the clouds come bowling noiselessly through the air, and spit here and there a drop preliminary. Well, if one thing suffers, another gains! See how the leaves are washed; the grass drinks, even drinks; the garden drinks; everything drinks.

It is our opinion that everything except man is laughing and rejoicing. Trees shake their leaves with a softer sound. Rocks look moist and soft, at least where the moss grows. Even the solitary old pine tree chords his harp, and sings soft and low melodies with plaintive undulations!

A good summer storm is a rain of riches. If gold and silver rattled down from the clouds, they could hardly enrich the land so much as soft, long rains. Every drop is silver going to the mint. The roots are machinery, and, catching the willing drops, they array them, refine them, roll them, stamp them, and turn them out coined berries, apples, grains, and grasses!

When the heavens send clouds and they bank up the horizon, be sure they have hidden gold in them. All the mountains of California are not so rich as are the soft mines of heaven, that send down treasures upon man without tasking him, and pour riches upon his field without spade or pickax—without his search or notice.

Well, let it rain, then! No matter if the journey is delayed, the picnic spoiled, the visit adjourned. Blessed be rain—and rain in summer. And blessed be he who watereth the earth and enricheth it for man and beast.