gently and settling back into rest, and the evening
sunbeams spangling on the broad leaves of the madronos,
their tracery of yellow boughs relieved against dusky
thickets of Chestnut Oak; liverworts, lycopodiums,
ferns were exulting in glorious revival, and every
moss that had ever lived seemed to be coming crowding
back from the dead to clothe each trunk and stone
in living green. The steaming ground seemed fairly
to throb and tingle with life; smilax, fritillaria,
saxifrage, and young violets were pushing up as if
already conscious of the summer glory, and innumerable
green and yellow buds were peeping and smiling everywhere.
As for the birds and squirrels, not a wing or tail
of them was to be seen while the storm was blowing.
Squirrels dislike wet weather more than cats do; therefore
they were at home rocking in their dry nests.
The birds were hiding in the dells out of the wind,
some of the strongest of them pecking at acorns and
manzanita berries, but most were perched on low twigs,
their breast feathers puffed out and keeping one another
company through the hard time as best they could.
When I arrived at the village about sundown, the good
people bestirred themselves, pitying my bedraggled
condition as if I were some benumbed castaway snatched
from the sea, while I, in turn, warm with excitement
and reeking like the ground, pitied them for being
dry and defrauded of all the glory that Nature had
spread round about them that day.
SIERRA THUNDER-STORMS
The weather of spring and summer in the middle region
of the Sierra is usually well flecked with rains and
light dustings of snow, most of which are far too
obviously joyful and life-giving to be regarded as
storms; and in the picturesque beauty and clearness
of outlines of their clouds they offer striking contrasts
to those boundless, all-embracing cloud-mantles of
the storms of winter. The smallest and most perfectly
individualized specimens present a richly modeled cumulous
cloud rising above the dark woods, about 11 A.M.,
swelling with a visible motion straight up into the
calm, sunny sky to a height of 12,000 to 14,000 feet
above the sea, its white, pearly bosses relieved by
gray and pale purple shadows in the hollows, and showing
outlines as keenly defined as those of the glacier-polished
domes. In less than an hour it attains full development
and stands poised in the blazing sunshine like some
colossal mountain, as beautiful in form and finish
as if it were to become a permanent addition to the
landscape. Presently a thunderbolt crashes through
the crisp air, ringing like steel on steel, sharp and
clear, its startling detonation breaking into a spray
of echoes against the cliffs and canon walls.
Then down comes a cataract of rain. The big drops
sift through the pine-needles, plash and patter on
the granite pavements, and pour down the sides of
ridges and domes in a network of gray, bubbling rills.
