ble there, for we had built our hay higher, and we had learned
the art of resting in that processional fashion, while the big, airy
place and the patter of the not infrequent rain had grown dear to us.
But that last night was different. It rained, as usual, but it did
something more. I had been asleep an indeterminable time when I was
aroused by a crash of thunder that for a moment I thought had taken off
the roof. In the glimmer of lightning that followed I realized that
Elizabeth was awake--also the Pride, aged twelve.

It was the sort of storm to make one sit up on his elbow. Elizabeth sat
up on hers, and declined to lie back even when assured that it would be
easier for the lightning to hit her in that half-erect position. The
Pride began asking persistently if the barn was going to be struck. The
Joy, who was next me, suddenly grabbed my arm and clung like a burr,
saying nothing. The Hope, secure in the knowledge of an upright life,
aided by a perfect digestion, slept as one in a trance, while the fierce
pounding grew more alarming as flash followed flash and the crashes came
more promptly and forcibly on the heels of every flare. I don't think I
was exactly afraid, but I could not altogether forget the tradition that
lightning has a mania for striking barns and it was this that had
occurred to Elizabeth. She said she had been reading of storms like this
in Jamaica, and that invariably they had struck barns, though whether
she meant Jamaica of southern waters or the pretty suburb on Long Island
by that name I have not learned to this day.

There was no wind, but all at once, at the very height of things, when
the flashes and the crashes came together and the very sky seemed about
to explode, one of our wide barn doors swung slowly, silently open, as
if moved by a spirit hand, and at the same instant there came a blaze
and roar that fairly filled the barn. A moment later the great door
silently closed; then once more opened to let in a blinding, deafening
shot.

[Illustration: _I made about three leaps and grabbed it, and a second
later had it hooked and was back, the lightning at my heels_]

I could tell by what Elizabeth said that the big door ought to be shut
and securely fastened. I made about three leaps and grabbed it, and a
second later had it hooked and was back, the lightning at my heels. Then
the clouds must have upset, for there came a downpour that fairly
drowned the world.

[Illustration]

But th