Page:Wiggin--Ladies-in-waiting.djvu/185

  saw a red sparkle here and there on the sooty bottom of the tea-kettle, and it grew a little when her mother remarked that the dishwater boiled away so fast and the cows lay down so much that she believed it would rain the next day. When, that same afternoon, the welcome shower came with scarce ten minutes’ warning, Huldah could hardly believe her eyes and ears. She jumped from her couch of anguish and remorse like an excited kitten, darted out of the house unmindful of the lightning, drove the Jersey calf under cover, chased the chickens into the coop, bolstered up the tomatoes so that the wind and rain would not blow the fruit from the heavily laden plants, opened the blinds and closed the windows.

“It comes from the east,” she cried, dancing up and down in a glow of childish glee—“it comes from the east, and it’s blowing in on Jennie’s side of the buggy!” She did not know that Pitt had changed places with his bride, and that his broad shoulder was shielding her from the “angry airt.”