The summer at Windsor was an unprecedently hot one. No rain in July, no rain in August, and September's sun was shining fiercely down upon parched earth, dried up rivers, panting animals, and complaining men. There would be no wheat, no corn; potatoes were dwarfed, and vegetables literally dried and hardened. Grass would be light, and cattle would be starved, if not first choked with thirst. The heavens were as brass, the fiery atmosphere like that of a furnace. Was there about to be a general conflagration, "when the earth and the heavens should be rolled together as a scroll?" The great Mississippi was never so low. Inquiring urchins made explorations up and down the dried banks with all the enthusiasm of explorers of the Nile. Even the women of Windsor proposed a bold feat. This was none other than in a body to ford the Mississippi. It would be something worth telling of, when, after some flood, the river should widen to the space of a mile. Accordingly, old calico wrappers were brought into requisition, and a small army of women stood upon the shores. You might have thought from the voices of fear, hesitation, reproach, and encouragement, another Red Sea was before them, and behind them a Pharaoh's host. All the women of Windsor were not engaged in this expedition. Some were milking cows, and some were putting dear little children to sleep; some were preparing late suppers for dilatory husbands, and not a few were gathered together in knots, discussing the impropriety and scandal of such a bold proceeding. Our heroine at Vine Cottage, entirely unaware of the movement, was enjoying the twilight in playing soft airs upon the piano. To one uninformed, a pow-wow of Indians might have been supposed to be going on. There were shrieks and wails, and screams of laughter, and cries of terror. There were threatenings, scoldings, and coaxings. Were all the grammars in the world made up of interjections they could scarcely have contained the list that rent the air, between the two Mississippi shores, upon that eventful night. The heavens were still above, though they might have been supposed to have disappeared entirely, so loudly and fervently were they invoked. "Why, it is enough to raise the dead," exclaimed a solitary traveler, a stranger in town, perambulating a neighboring bluff. As the vociferating army neared the opposite shore, there was a momentary silence; that breathless silence which precedes the storm. Then uprose such a terrific scream, such a commingled shout of horror, as only frightened women can give vent to. This brought men, women and children in throngs to the scene. Some leaped into boats, some walked in to the rescue. The majority awaited ashore the unfolding of events.