n
very busy elsewhere for three months, she meant to stand no nonsense
now, but get the whole country furbished up in one night. What a time
they were having, those dusty, untidy-looking trees! Bucket after
bucket, millions of buckets as big as a house, full of delicious
rain-water, flung at their heads! And the dusty, disgraceful roads
swept bare, with gallons upon gallons of water driving their refuse
hither and thither, all of it, as if mightily ashamed of itself,
scrambling along in masses; and, of course, in its haste choking up
the drains, and becoming a serious hindrance until a veritable
water-spout was necessary to clear the course.

And then the dead branches and twigs that the trees had been too lazy
to shed; short shrift for them on the first spring-cleaning night.
Down they came, helter-skelter, and no notice taken of the tree's
groaning, or its crackling cries of protest.

And the little river-beds and stream-beds, carelessly left to get
filled up with dead leaves and rank grass, such a turning out for them
as the resistless water was driven in sweeping streams along their
bosoms! And woe betide any carelessly thatched or unsightly roofs! Off
they went, away with the general medley. The coming summer would have
none of them. And the granite, which had allowed dust and dirt and
dead grasses to accumulate upon it, how it got its face scrubbed and
washed that first night, and the wind shrieking with glee all the
time, dashing the sheets of rain against it with its whole might!

But, of course, one could tell that everything liked it. The laughter
in the trees and the wind was quite distinct, and the little rivers
were fairly shouting with joy. It was not their fault that all that
piece of the earth had grown so dusty and untidy; it was Mother
Nature's own fault for being so long coming with those big buckets of
hers. How could any land, however willing, look spruce and green and
clean with no rain for four months? No wonder there was such a
commotion, and it was such a noisy, vigorous business, when at last
the rain did come! Every tree and every blade and every flower had a
special little life-plan of its own to carry out, if only it could get
enough moisture, to say nothing of all the myriad insects and birds
and animals, who were too lackadaisical, after the long, dry heat, to
thoroughly begin their summer preparations until the rain came. The
activity among the humans, with their gold-mines and farms a