The Storm

(really fast)
B:
It is a day in the country and everything is hot.
The grass looks dry and parched. The buttercups
are sticky with dust; the daisies' white petals look
gray; and all the flowers, the rambler roses climbing
up the gate, the hollyhocks leaning against the
house, hang limply on their stems.

E:
The little boy can almost see the heat quivering
up like mist from the earth. A little caterpillar
climbs carefully up a dusty blade of grass and then
climbs down again. There is a special hot stillness
over everything. The white fox terrier has crawled
under the latticework of the porch and lies sleeping
in the shade. Even the birds seem to hot to sing,
for there is not a sound among the leaves.

B:
But the hazy sky begins to shift, and the yellow
heat turns gray. Everything is the same color-one
enormous listless gray world where not a breath
stirs and the birds don't sing. There isn't the slightest
motion of a branch, the slightest whisper of a breeze.
And still there is something expectant in the growing
darkness; something is astir, something soundless
and still for which the little boy waits.

E:
He waits and he sees dark clouds beginning to
form, throwing their shadow over the parched
fields, moving one after another until they cover
the sky and the world is as black as night. A little cool
wind suddenly races through the trees, sways the
rambler roses, bends the daisies and buttercups and
Queen Anne's lace and the long grass until they
make a great silver sighing stretch down the hill.
Then it happens! Shooting through the sky like
a streak of starlight comes a flash so beautiful, so
fast, that the little boy barely has time to see the
flowers straining into the storm wind.
"Oh mother," he calls, "What was that?"
"Oh mother," he calls, "What was that?"

B:
"Lightning," his mother answers, "that our own
lamplight comes from." The little boy thinks of
the lamp in his room, with its warm golden glow.
And he thinks of the lightning flashing through the
sky. The lightning was like a wild white wolf
running free in the woods and the lamp like the
gentle white terrier who came when the little boy
called.
And now from somewhere beyond the hill comes
the great rolling rrrrrrrrrrrrmmmmmmmmmmm-
mmmmDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDRRRR R R R R of
the thunder.
"What's that?" the little boy shouts.
"What's that?" the little boy shouts.

E:
"Rain clouds breaking against each other, and
that is the sound they make," his mother says. Now
there is a silence again in the dark world, stillness,
and then the whole sky lights up in one blinding
starry flash of lightning.
The sky darkens again as the thunder draws
closer, rolling loudly nearer, until, with a sudden
explosion, it crashes overhead and a silver torrent
of rain slants down. The daisies bend almost to the
ground under the tearing weight of the wind and
the rain sweeping over the rambler roses and trees,
as they toss in the cool huge arms of the storm.

B:
Miles away in the storm-darkened city, a young
man closes his book and gets up to look out of the
window. Below him on the street, the lighted store
windows shine on the wet sidewalks and every flash
of lightning shows people running by, newspapers
over their heads or umbrellas held down in front of
them to buffet the wind and the rain.

E:
The tops of the tall buildings look cut off by the
storm darkness, and the little city trees strain at
their roots in their loop-fenced circles, and the wind.
whips the leaves from their branches. The automobile
tires make a swish-swishing sound as they pass.

B:
At the seashore and old fisherman stands boot-deep
in the waves, and the wind and rain splatter against
his oilskin with a terrible beating sound. His face is
wet with sea spray and rain. When the thunder roars,
nothing else can be heard, not the wild splashing of
the black waves, nor the drive of the rain against the
oilskin. It seems as though there is nothing in the
world but the tremendous ear-splitting rrrrrMMM-
MMMMDDDDDDDRRRRRR R R R of the thunder,
followed by streak after streak of cloud-rending light.

E:
Once when the lightning flashes a little brown
sandpiper skids across the sand on his way home,
so swiftly that he is gone before the light leaves
the sky.

B:
In the mountains the rain comes down like a
waterfall. Each crash of thunder sounds as though
the rocks of the mountains were splitting apart, but
each flash of lightning shows them solid and quiet
against the sky.

E:
A young husband herds his sheep to shelter. His wife
looks out of the window at the storm-torn hills, while
their baby sleeps quietly in her arms.

B:
The rain drives against the windows of the little
boy's house. It beats a loud tattooing pitpatpitpatting
on the roof, and the wind rising and falling in the
trees sounds like the sea breaking against the shore.
Slowly the storm subsides. The sky begins to
brighten, the thunder rolls away, and only from far,
far off now can the little boy hear the rrrrrmmmm-
ddddrrrrrr, as the wind blows the great clouds away
from the cool wet land. The loud pitpatpitting on
the roof grows softer, and softer, and slowly becomes
a dull pit-a-pat, pit-pit-pit, and at last stops altogether.
The air is clean and fresh, and smells of wet earth
and growing things.
The rambler roses have covered the ground with
a shower of wind-driven sweet-smelling petals. The
daisies are still bent from the weight of the rain, and
their moist white petals cling together. But already
the buttercups are standing straight, fresh and
glistening, with one clear raindrop cupped in each
shiny yellow blossom.

E:
A queer yellow light spreads over the earth now,
so faint, so fine, so beautiful that the little boy lets
out his breath with a soft whistling sound. And
suddenly all the birds break into song. The glistening
wet trees are loud with sharp quick twitterings and
long full-noted calls.
Here and there in the sparkling grass a quick
brown sparrow pecks around looking for worms.
The light covers everything now, the house, the
hollyhocks, the great stretch of grass, the trees, and
the fresh cool face of the little boy who stands in
the doorway watching.
"What's that!" he suddenly calls to his mother.
"What's that!" he suddenly calls to his mother.
She comes to the door and looks through the yellow
light to a great curving misty arch of color that,
coming from farther than they can see, bends across
the sky, over the city; over the yellow storm-whipped
sand; over the clean-smelling, bird-singing moun-
tains; over the hill toward the little boy's door.

B:
"That's the rainbow, little son," says his mother,
"to show that the storm has passed."

E:
And she slipped her arm around him so gently he
didn't notice, as he watched the beautiful sunlit
colors arching over the world.