XXXVI. WEATHER

Of all the sky giants, or fairies, the one we wish most to be on good terms with is the weather.

How much of our doing depends upon it! The people of a seaside village where I went once used to say "Yes, if it's weather," when asked about doing things. It was amusing to me because there was sure to be weather of some sort, whatever else happened.

A great many things change with weather. Sights and sounds vary; growing things get excused if it has not been kind to them; we all praise or blame it, as if it were a person who ought to treat us well. Here is what one of Dickens' characters heard sitting by the fireside.

It's a dark night, sang the kettle,

And the rotten leaves are lying by the way;

And above all is mist and darkness,

And below all is mire and clay.

And there's only one relief

In all the sad and murky air,
And I don't know that it is one,
For it's nothing but a glare

Of deep and angry crimson
Where the sun and wind together
Set a brand upon the clouds

For being guilty of such weather.

Ours is a very great country; it is both long and wide. While in one section people are delighting in sunshine and wearing summer clothing, those of another may be shivering with cold. Rain may be falling in torrents in one place, and in another crops be suffering from lack of moisture. In the whole United States there might be at the same time all the kinds of weather there are.

Wind, the great weather master, seems all the time to be trying to make things more nearly equal in his great kingdom, the air.

As fast as one part gets overheated he has it rise to the cooler levels of upper air. This sends what was there before on to a new place, and lets cooler currents rush in to fill the place it leaves, for it is a law of his kingdom that there shall be no vacuum, or vacant place.

Cool currents come down to the bottom of the air ocean, and flow on till they have spent their force, for a current of air does not have to return as a wave of the sea does.

If a number of different waves are traveling, it must be constantly happening that they meet; and as they have no eyes to see and avoid it, there must be a great many shocks. You may watch battles of the winds almost any day, and it will grow to be interesting as you learn what kinds of lines they take. A spiral is a favorite movement for those that are seeking higher levels, and a circle is always preferred to a straight line.

Wise men, who when they were schoolboys learned their geography lessons well, and when they were older studied geometry, chemistry, and physics, are able to calculate the force and direction of storm winds, and tell where and when they will meet.

The Weather Bureau, whose center is at Washington, is maintained to be of use to farmers, seamen, merchants, and private people in helping them to arrange their affairs wisely. This is possible because of the constancy of nature's laws; thus weather, which we sometimes think is fickle and changeable, is found to be a marvel of quick obedience, and storms are parts of the process of keeping order for a whole world.

XXXVII. THE CLOUD

I BRING fresh showers for the thirsting flowers,
From the seas and the streams;

I bear light shade for the leaves when laid
In their noonday dreams.

From my wings are shaken the dews that waken
The sweet birds every one,

When rocked to rest on their mother's breast, As she dances about the sun.

I wield the flail of the lashing hail,

And whiten the green plains under;

And then again I dissolve it in rain,
And laugh as I pass in thunder.

I sift the snow on the mountains below,
And their great pines groan aghast;
And all the night 't is my pillow white,

While I sleep in the arms of the blast.
Sublime on the towers of my skyey bowers
Lightning, my pilot, sits;

In a cavern under is fettered the thunder,
It struggles and howls by fits.

94

THE CLOUD

That orbed maiden, with white fire laden,

Whom mortals call the moon,

Glides glimmering o'er my fleece-like floor,
By the midnight breezes strewn ;

And wherever the beat of her unseen feet,
Which only the angels hear,

May have broken the woof of my tent's thin roof,
The stars peep behind her and peer;

And I laugh to see them whirl and flee,

Like a swarm of golden bees,

When I widen the rent in my wind-built tent,
Till the calm river, lakes, and seas,

Like strips of the sky fallen through me on high,
Are each paved with the moon and these.

Sunbeam proof, I hang like a roof,

The mountains its columns be.

The triumphal arch through which I march,

With hurricane, fire, and snow,

When the powers of the air are chained to my chair, Is the million-colored bow;

The sphere-fire above its soft colors wove,

While the moist earth was laughing below.

SHELLEY.

95