ening. Wealthy hid herself in the parlor clothes-closet, and Gram
sat with her hands folded in the middle of the sitting-room. Just before
the clouds burst, it was so dark in the house that we could scarcely see
each others' faces. A moment later the lightning struck a large
butternut tree near the calf-pasture wall, across the south field,
shivering it so completely that nearly all the top fell; the trunk, too,
was split open from the heart.

In fact, the terrific flashes and peals indicated that the lightning was
descending to the earth all about us. Two barns were struck and burned
in the school district adjoining ours. Rain then fell in sheets, and
also hail, which cut the garden vegetables to strings and broke a number
of windows. This tempest lasted for nearly an hour, and prostrated the
corn and standing grain very badly. An apple tree was also up-rooted,
for there was violent wind as well as lightning and thunder.

Next morning we were obliged to leave our farm work and repair the roads
throughout that highway district, for the shower had gullied the hills
almost beyond belief. Altogether it had done a great amount of damage on
every hand.

At supper that night, after returning from work on the highway, the Old
Squire suddenly asked whether any of us had seen the colts, in the
pasture beyond the west field, that day.

No one remembered having seen them since the shower, though we generally
noticed them running around the pasture every day. There were three of
them, two bays and a black one. The two former were the property of men
in the village, but Black Hawk, as we called him, belonged to us.

"After supper, you had better go see where they are," the Old Squire
said to us.

Addison and I set off accordingly. The pasture was partly cleared, with
here and there a pine stub left standing, and was of about twenty acres
extent. We went up across it to the top of the hill, but could not find
the colts. Then we walked around by the farther fence, but discovered no
breach in it and no traces where truant hoofs had jumped over it. It was
growing dark, and we at length went home to report our ill-success.

"Strange!" the Old Squire said. "We must look them up." But no further
search was made that night.

"Is that a hawk?" Halstead said to me, while he and I were out milking a
little before sunrise next morning. "Don't you see it? Sailing round
over the colt pasture. Too big for a hawk, isn't it?"

A large bird