"Oh, Ad, what do you think this is?" Theodora asked, still in the same hushed voice. "Well, I think it is _dark_," replied Addison, trying to appear unconcerned. "Don't laugh, Ad," said Theodora solemnly. "Something awful has happened." "And where have you two been so long?" asked Catherine. "We thought you were lost. We thought you would never come. What time is it?" We struck a match and looked. It was nearly half past four. "Oh, get in, Ad, and take the reins! Let's go home!" Ellen pleaded. "Yes, Ad, let's go home, if we can get there," said Tom Edwards. "What d'ye suppose it is, anyhow?" "_Dark!_" exclaimed Addison hardily. "Just plain dark!" "Oh, Addison!" exclaimed Theodora reprovingly. "Don't try to joke about a thing like this." "It may be the end of the world," Ellen murmured. "The world has had a good many ends to it," said Addison. "Which end do you think this is, Nell?" But neither Ellen nor Theodora cared to reply to him. Their low, frightened voices increased my uneasiness. I could think of nothing except that rainbow in the morning; "morning," "warning," seemed to ring in my ears. We climbed into the wagon and started homeward, but it was so dark that we had to plod along slowly. Old Sol was unusually torpid, as if the ominous obscurity had dazed him, too. After a time he stopped short and snorted; we heard the brush crackle and caught a glimpse of a large animal crossing the road ahead of us. "That's a bear," Thomas said. "Bears are out, just as if it were night." Some minutes passed before we could make Old Sol go on; and again we heard owls hooting in the woods. Long before we got down to the cleared land, however, the sky began gradually to grow lighter. We all noticed it, and a feeling of relief stole over us. In the course of twenty minutes it became so light that we could discern objects round us quite plainly. The night chill, too, seemed to go from the air. Suddenly, as we rattled along, Addison jumped up from his seat and turned to us. "I know now what this is!" he cried. "Why didn't I think of it before?" "What is it--if you know?" cried Catherine and Theodora at once. "The eclipse! The total eclipse of the sun!" exclaimed Addison. "I remember now reading something about it in the _Maine Farmer_ a fortnight ago. It was to be on the 7th--and this is it!" At that time advance notices of such phenomena were not so widely published as they are now; at the old farm, too, we did not take a daily newspaper. So one of the great astronomical events of the last century had come and gone, and we had not known what it was until it was over.