Beside the dead tree, whence I could see the overhanging sky, I determined to pass the night; and hastening ere darkness set in, I gathered a handful of berries, and placing them beside my little store of food, sat down in happy contentment to my evening meal. Ere this was finished, darkness had closed in, and fatigued with the events of the day and what had gone before, I stretched my body on the soft grass with the dead sycamore for a pillow. Looking up as I lay outstretched, the sky, which was before clear, had now become overcast, gray, filmy clouds scattering themselves across its face like puffs of steam, and seeming to fly rather than float in the summer air. Nor was this the only change. The treetops, no longer still, gave forth faint murmurings, swaying and curtesying to each other as if in welcome or expectancy of some coming event. The wind rising as I gazed, filled the air with fitful meanings, not unlike fear, and soon flying leaves and bits of wood tossed from the swaying trees, falling on my face, gave notice that the storm was gaining in strength. The moan of the forest as the wind whipped the branches of the trees presently rose into wild uproar, like the mad rush of multitudes of men. Then, as if worn out with the effort, it would die away into pitiful murmurings, only to spring up again a moment later with greater fury than before. Thus as I watched, the storm came on with ever-increasing tumult and confusion of sounds, but orderly and in sequence, like a great orchestra getting under way. The whirl and roar of the wind as the rising tempest swept the impeding forest in no wise disturbed my repose, but soothed, rather, both my body and mind. Now again I was once more at Wild Plum, and listening, as in childhood, to the woods and the voices of the air and the night. No feature of Nature’s storehouse, it may be said, is so full of grandeur and expectancy as a storm in the forest. A scourge, maybe, but not in the sense of punishment, but of playfulness and reviving life! A carnival of the air, a frolicking of the atoms, where moderation gives place to fantasies and all the world joins in the fullness of life! Many, I know, do not look upon such things with any pleasure, but for the most part all such are city born, and not used to wide expanses where the wind is free to work its will, nor cumbered about with the devices of men that serve to stay its strength and hinder its progress. To such, storms are fraught with direful happenings, in which the wind and lightning are dreaded agents; but not so do those who are country bred look upon the tempest. Nor did I, but lay with upturned face, harkening to each sound as if it conveyed some form of speech, which I have no doubt it did.