go the clouds over in the northwest were piled up very high and black,
and it was quite late in the afternoon. Very likely her mother would
not have let her gone if she had been at home, but she had taken the
baby, who had waked from his nap, and gone to call on her nearest
neighbor, half a mile away. As for her father, he was busy in the
garden, and all the other children were with him, and they did not
notice Flax when she stole out of the front door. She crossed the
river on a pretty arched stone bridge nearly opposite the house, and
went directly into the woods on the side of the mountain.

Everything was very still and dark and solemn in the woods. They knew
about the storm that was coming. Now and then Flax heard the leaves
talking in queer little rustling voices. She inherited the ability to
understand what they said from her father. They were talking to each
other now in the words of her father's song. Very likely he had heard
them saying it sometime, and that was how he happened to know it,

"O what is it shineth so golden-clear
At the rainbow's foot on the dark green hill?"

Flax heard the maple leaves inquire. And the pine-leaves answered
back:

"'Tis the Pot of Gold, that for many a year
Has shone, and is shining and dazzling still."

Then the maple-leaves asked:

"And whom is it for, O Pilgrim, pray?"

And the pine-leaves answered:

"For thee, Sweetheart, should'st thou go that way."

Flax did not exactly understand the sense of the last question and
answer between maple and pine-leaves. But they kept on saying it
over and over as she ran along. She was going straight to the tall
pine-tree. She knew just where it was, for she had often been there.
Now the rain-drops began to splash through the green boughs, and the
thunder rolled along the sky. The leaves all tossed about in a strong
wind and their soft rustles grew into a roar, and the branches and the
whole tree caught it up and called out so loud as they writhed and
twisted about that Flax was almost deafened, the words of the song:

"O what is it shineth so golden-clear?"

Flax sped along through the wind and the rain and the thunder. She was
very much afraid that she should not reach the tall pine which was
quite a way distant before the sun shone out, and the rainbow came.

The sun was already breaking through the clouds when she came in sight
of it, way up above her on a rock. The rain-drops on the trees began
to shine