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 whistle and rumble of a train several miles away sounded distinct through the still, brooding air; and as he walked along the top of the ridge behind the horses he heard twice the harsh cry of a woodpecker.

"We'll have a terbacker settin' rain afore mornin', Judy," he said, when she came out to help him put up the horses. "Everything says so."

Before they went to bed that night the rain began. Jerry went out and fixed the drain of the eaves trough so that the water would run into the cistern. The next morning it was still coming down in a warm, steady downpour. All day it fell in the same soft, gently-falling stream, like a blessing upon mankind, not from a self-centered Hebrew deity, but from some sweet natured and generous pagan god.

"Bejasus, this'll fetch things along, Judy," said Jerry, who was busily nailing soles on Judith's shoes beside the kitchen window. "Land, haow everything'll pick up after this rain! I sholy do love to see things grow in spring. An' about to-morrow afternoon we kin go to settin'."

The next morning dawned blue and warm, full of birdsong and the scent of wet growing things. The ground was dank with rain, but by afternoon Jerry thought it would be dry enough to begin setting. After breakfast he went to the tobacco bed to pull plants and Judith got on one of the horses and rode over to her father's to get Elmer to come and "drop." As the horse trotted along the top of the ridge and out onto the sodden "pike" full of puddles, she breathed deep of the fragrant air, felt the sun's warmth on her back and shoulders and almost fancied that she was a plant that had sucked in the life-giving rain and was preparing to raise its blossom to the sun.

She returned before long with Elmer, now grown into a loutish chunk of fourteen, all hands and feet and appetite. Elmer rode upon Pete, a young mule that Bill had bought to take the place of Bob, who had died the year before of old age. Pete was of a rich chestnut color, glossy, handsome, and liquid-eyed. He was also intelligent with the super-equine in-