It was raining, but no one was surprised. They had expected it.

The day before had been one of those warm, midsummer days, beginning with a clear sky and a strong south wind. By noon heavy white clouds that looked like heaps of down floated slowly overhead.

[Illustration: The weather vane.]

The weather vane, which in the morning had pointed to the south, turned from side to side, as though uncertain which direction it liked best. Toward afternoon it seemed to settle the question in favor of the east.

The clouds did not rise higher and become thinner and more scattered, as such clouds do if the weather is fair. They kept their white, billowy edges, and rested heavily on straight bands of dull gray.

When the sun set, the scroll—like edges of the clouds were tinged with gold and rose color, but under the glittering fringe remained the solid banks of gray and misty purple.

The thermometer had been high all day, for it was very warm. The barometer had slowly but surely fallen.

Then, too, the Weather Report, just received, told of a storm that had started in the southwestern part of the country and was moving northeast. Uncle Robert had said, at the rate it was traveling, it might reach them some time the next day.

And now it was raining in a quiet, steady way. The clouds had lost their billowy whiteness. They were one dull, heavy, unbroken mass of gray. The wind blew steadily from the southeast.

A rainy day was before them.

"The very thing we need," said Mr. Leonard. "The corn is just ready for it, and the pastures are beginning to look pretty dry."

"Let's go fishing, Don," said Frank. "I'll go and dig some worms while you get the lines ready."

"Say we do," said Donald, starting off at once.

"Do you want some company, boys?" asked Uncle Robert, smiling.

"You bet-ter believe!" said Donald, catching himself just in time.

"Hurrah for the rainy day!" cried Frank as he pulled on his rubber boots and coat and went out to dig the worms.

"Shall we take the boat?" asked Uncle Robert.

"Oh, yes," said Donald. "I'll get the oars."

"We'll have fish for dinner to-day, mother," said Frank.

"Be sure you come back in time, then," said Mrs. Leonard, smiling.

"I wish I was a boy and could go fishing in the rain," said Susie as she watched them start off.

Down the hill they went, and Susie, watching them from the front porch, saw them push the boat from the landing and throw out their lines as they drifted down the stream. Then the trees hid them from sight.

It was dinner time when they returned.

"I told you we'd have fish to-day," said Frank triumphantly, holding up a string of bass and perch.

"You boys will have to clean them," said Mrs. Leonard. "Jane is ready to cook them now."

"Come on, Don," called Frank. "My, won't they be good!"

In the afternoon it ceased to rain. It became lighter and the clouds looked higher and thinner.

"It's going to clear off," said Susie, going to the window.

"I wonder how much rain has fallen," said Uncle Robert.

"I'm going to look at the rain-gauge," said Frank.

"I'll go too," said Donald.

When they came back they said there were fifteen inches of water in the measuring tube, which, in the receiver, would be an inch and a half.

"That would just fill it," said Donald.

"Does that mean," asked Susie, "that if the rain had stayed on the ground it would be an inch and a half deep all over?"

"Yes," answered Uncle Robert.

"Would that be very much?" she asked, taking the rod by which the rain in the gauge was measured and finding the mark for an inch and a half.

"We might find out how much it would be on Susie's garden," said Uncle
Robert. "Does any one know how large the garden is?"

No one knew.

"Let's get father's tapeline and measure it," said Frank.

"Oh, do," said Susie, always interested in anything about her garden.

When they came in Donald said:

"It is muddy, but it's beginning to dry off in some places already."

"How big is the garden?" asked Susie.

"It is forty feet one way," said Frank, "and twenty-five feet the other."

"Take your paper and pencil, Frank," said Uncle Robert, "and draw a plan of it. You might make one inch for every ten feet, and see how that will come out."

Frank took the paper, pencil, and ruler, and soon he said:

"It makes it four inches long and two inches and a half wide."

"But remember," said Uncle Robert, "that means forty feet long and twenty-five feet wide."

"I'll write it down," said Frank; "then we'll remember."

So he wrote "40" on the long side and "25" on the short one.

"But we must find out how many square feet there are on the whole surface," said Uncle Robert.

"Well," said Frank, "there are forty this way."

"So we might think of it as a row across the garden of forty square feet, might we not?" suggested Uncle Robert.

"Yes," said Frank; "and if we do that there will be twenty-five rows just like it, won't there?"

"Exactly," said Uncle Robert. "How many does that make in all?"

"Twenty-five forties," said Frank, pencil in hand. "Why, that's just one thousand."

"That sounds pretty big," said Susie.

"Especially when you think of the weeds," said Uncle Robert, smiling,
"How many square inches would that be, Frank?"

"Well," said Frank, "a foot is twelve inches long, and if it is square it is twelve inches wide, too."

"Then," said Uncle Robert, "if you call them rows of twelve square inches, how many rows would there be?"

"Why, twelve," said Donald.

"And so it would be—"

"One hundred forty-four," said Frank.

"Then," said Uncle Robert, "if there are one hundred forty-four square inches in one foot, how many in one thousand feet?"

"One hundred forty-four thousand," said Frank, after a moment's thought.

"But the rain-gauge says that an inch and a half of rain has fallen," said Uncle Robert, "and when an inch is as deep as it is long and broad, it is called a cubic inch. How much would one and one-half cubic inches be?"

"If this is one inch," said Frank, looking at the paper, "half an inch deep would be half of this, and that, added to this, would be an inch and a half. Isn't that right?"

He went to work again, and after a few minutes' silence he said:

"It makes two hundred and sixteen thousand inches in all."

"What kind of inches did we call them, Donald?"

"Cubic inches," said Donald.

"If you were to bring a pail of water from the spring," said Uncle
Robert, "would you say you had so many inches of water?"

"No," said Frank, "it would be quarts, or gallons, or something like that."

"Do you know how much a quart or gallon is, Susie?" asked Uncle Robert.

"Mother has a quart cup in the pantry," said Susie, "that she measures the milk in sometimes, but I don't know how much a gallon is."

"My new milk pail," said Mrs. Leonard, who sat beside the window sewing, "holds just two gallons."

"Let's see how many quarts it takes to fill it," said Susie.

So they went into the kitchen, and Susie dipped the water with the quart cup into the tin pail.

"Eight," she said, when the pail would hold no more.

"If the pail holds two gallons, Susie." said Uncle Robert, "how many quarts are there in one gallon?"

"Four." said Susie, counting on her fingers.

[Illustration: Two gallons. One quart.]

"Well," said Uncle Robert as they went back into the dining-room, "now we have found how many quarts there are in a gallon; how shall we find how many gallons two hundred and sixteen thousand cubic inches will make?"

"If I knew how many cubic inches there are in one gallon," said Frank,
"I could do it."

"How shall we find out?" asked Uncle Robert.

"We might measure a gallon," said Donald, "and then if we could empty it into a flat pan couldn't we measure that?"

"We can try," said Uncle Robert, "if your mother has the pan."

"You may use one of those tins I bake biscuit in," said Mrs. Leonard.

"I'll get it," said Susie.

They measured it and found it was eleven inches long, seven inches wide, and two inches deep. The gallon of water filled it one and one half time.

"If it had been three inches deep," said Frank, "the water would have just filled it."

"Well," said Uncle Robert, "can you find out how many inches there are in all?"

It took some time and several suggestions from Uncle Robert, but at last they found it to be two hundred thirty-one cubic inches.

"Now," said Uncle Robert, "can you find how many two hundred thirty-one cubic inches there are in two hundred and sixteen thousand cubic inches?"

"I know how," said Frank, figuring rapidly.

In a short time he found that two hundred and sixteen thousand cubic inches would make over nine hundred thirty-five gallons.

"If you were going to water the garden with the new two-gallon pail," said Uncle Robert, "how many times would you have to fill it?"

"If we took two gallons at a time," said Frank, "it would be—wait a minute—it would be four hundred sixty-seven and one half."

"My," said Donald, "it makes my arms ache to think of it."

"I'm going to find out how much fell on the whole farm some time," said
Frank, "but I'm just tired out now."

"Where does all the rain come from?" asked Susie. "I don't see how so much water can stay in the clouds."

"It doesn't," said Donald, laughing. "That's why it rains."

"But where does it all go to?" asked Uncle Robert.

"Oh," said Susie, "it just goes into the ground."

"Some of it runs off into the river," said Donald. "That's what makes it rise when it rains hard."

"I wonder if it has risen much to-day?" said Frank.

"We might put on our rubber boots and walk down and see," said Uncle
Robert. "It is clearing off finely."

"It is almost supper time now," said Mrs. Leonard. "If you'll wait I'll help Jane get it ready, and then you can go as soon as it is over."

So they waited, and by the time they started the sun was shining brightly. It would be a whole hour before it would set.