appearance of having grown
where it was. One could imagine, without very much effort, that it had
not been built as were other houses, but had grown up gradually like
some queer sort of solid plant.

The pillars of the small front porch were covered thick with a white
clematis in full bloom, the pride of Miss Eliza's heart; and well might
she be proud, for no other clematis for miles around ever bloomed so
profusely or so largely. Flowers nodded gayly in the smallest of formal
gardens at one end of the house and honeysuckle vines clambered over
frames by the summer-house sheltering the cistern at the other end; but
both vines and flowers climbed and nodded in the most orderly manner,
for they were all Miss Eliza's plants.

The house was painted every other spring, painted this creamy-white,
and it always seemed a cleaner white than any other white house in the
country, no matter if those others were painted just as often. The
outside shutters to the twinkling square-paned windows were green, a
rich, dark green, that had not been changed since time began for the
Farm. On the second day of May every other year (unless that day fell
on Sunday) John Gibson drove out from town and began painting at the
Farm. If it rained, he painted inside the porches first; but he put one
coat of paint all over everything paintable before he was through. He
always stayed out at the Farm until his work was done, and then he
drove back to town again, to wait until the then two-years' distant
second day of May should bring him back.

And everything that was done on the Farm was done in just such
well-grooved ruts of habit.

* * * * *

It had been unbearably hot and close all day long.

The brazen, hard-blue sky had seemed to be pressing a blanket of thick,
humid air closer and closer to the earth as if bent upon the
suffocation of everything living. Everybody at the Farm had been sure
it was brewing a storm. They had hoped a good rainstorm; and now ... It
was almost come.

Down on the horizon the clouds were piling up in great black and dark
grey masses, with here and there a lighter grey that showed ominously
against its darker background; cloud masses shot through every now and
then with an angry-looking red or orange flash that was immediately
answered by a low rumble of ever nearing thunder.

The wind had risen, after this gasping day without a breath of air
stirring anywhere, and now it