Page:Under the Sun.djvu/101

Rh the slab ground, opening and shutting up their bodies like telescopes. The dank frogs doat on it. They hop impatiently out, albeit in a stealthy way, from clammy corners, behind pillars, and under flower-pots, to see if their ditches are filling nicely, and hop back happy.

When it rains there are, to those inside the house, two sounds, a greater and a less, and it is curious, and very characteristic of our humanity, that the less always seems the greater. The one is the great dead sound of falling water — the out-of-doors being rained upon — almost too large to hear. The other is the splashing of our eaves. Outside, the heavens are falling in detail, but the sound comes to us only in its great expanse, more large than loud, heard only as a vast mutter. At our verandah’s edge is a poor spout noisily spurting its contents upon the gravel-path, and yet it is only to our own poor spout that we give heed. If it gives a sudden spurt, we say, “How it is raining! just listen” — to the spout. The sullen roar of the earth submitting to the rain we hardly remark. We listen to the patch of plantains complaining of every drop that falls upon them, but take no note of the downward rush of water on the long-suffering, silent grass. But when it is raining be so good as to remark the ducks. They are being bred for your table, a private speculation of the cook’s, but they are never fed, so they have to feed themselves. Dinner deferred maketh ducks mad, so they sally forth in a quackering series to look for worms. Nevertheless they loiter to wash. Was ever enjoyment more thorough than that of ducks accustomed to live in a cook-house (in the corner by the stove) who have been let out on a rainy day? They can hardly waddle for joy, and