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235 This morning the boughs are heavy with rain.3 The herbs are laden to the ground, some of them with their heads caught in the soil. The downpour began before midnight. We were aroused by the wind in the trees and the patter on the roof. We lay awake to hear the drift in the leaves, until the roar was in the spouts; then sleep was sweet in the balm of the rain. At last the heat was broken. We were eager in the early morning to feel the freshness and to see the new earth. For still Elijah calls to Ahab: “Get thee up...; for there is the sound of abundance of rain.” By eight o’clock the sun was out, and the bright fresh light glistened in every tree and bush. The grass was deep with hanging drops. The birds seemed unusually alert. The sky was clear and blue, washed clean of its dust. No work could be begun in garden or fields, although we were full of energy that the rain had brought. We were keen to be abroad and see the effects in ditches and tilled lands. Everything would be rinsed and fresh. Barefoot boys and girls were already in the pools, feeling the silt between their toes. But for us, grown old with conventionalities, it was either rubber boots or remain dry shod about the buildings. When would the grass be dry again? By ten o’clock the boughs had resumed their normal position, the weight having been removed before our very eyes and yet we had not seen it go. No magic carpet or golden wand of the old fairy books could have wrought a more complete wizardry. Large drops were still hanging from the points of leaves, and little corpuscles still lay on leaves that were crumpled like cups. The herbs had begun to straighten by some force within them that we could not comprehend. The grass tops seemed dry but big drops would shake from them; the bottom still was full of wet. Rain 3. From The Harvest of the Year to the Tiller of the Soil (New York: Macmillan, 1927), 150–156. VIII. APPRECIATIONS 236 By noon the herbage was dry, except in deep and shady places. The heavy wet had vanished somewhere, and we could not recall it if we would. We knew it had gone into thin air, but if we had not been born to such experience , we should have stood dumb in wonder. The bare earth in the tilled fields was still wet and soft; unlike the leaves, the soil was soaked with free water and it would be giving up its moisture for a day or two, being wet on top as the water came up from below, a process that filled us all day with something like a new sensation. The crops looked their best. The herbage shone green, the wilt was gone, the corn leaves had unrolled. There is tonic in the air today. The droning heats of midsummer have given way to the sweeping surge of the downpour. The rain barrels and tubs all are full. Crops are at work again. The livestock has its old-time animation. The ground exhales a challenge to new effort, and we know that the earth is young and that its power has not waned; it is renewed when the solvent comes. Now that the spell is broken we shall expect more rain. We shall make good crops of corn and late potatoes, and are sure the ground will be in condition to fit for winter wheat. The fall pastures will be good. The silos will be filled. Wells will have deep, sweet water. Little creeks that have been dry and weedy since May will run again. Today is “growing weather,” even though the season is late. The farmer knows what this weather is, but no man can define it or measure it. It is like a sensation, so indefinite is it and so elusive to describe and yet so real. The best things of life cannot be inventoried, and for the exalted moments we really have no symbols or names. In all nature there is nothing so rejuvenating and so freshening as rain. It seems to arouse the very essence of all things inanimate and to awaken the souls of things that have being. There is life-giving vigor in it. So unlike is it to ground and rocks and grass and trees...

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