On a rainy day Green Valley is just as interesting as it is in the
sunshine. Somehow though the big trees sag and drip and the wind sighs
about the corners there is nothing mournful about the streets.

The children go to school just as joyously in raincoats and rubber
boots. Their round glad faces, minus a tooth here and there, smile up
at you from under big umbrellas. After the school bell rings the
streets do get quiet but there is nothing depressing about that; for as
you pass along you see at doors and windows the contented faces of busy
women.

Old Mrs. Walley sits at her up-stairs front window sewing carpet rags.
Grandma Dudley at her sitting room window is darning her
grandchildren's stockings and carefully watching the street. Whenever
anybody passes to whom she wants to talk she taps on the window with
her thimble. She is a dear entertaining old soul but hard to get away
from. Women with bread at home waiting to be put into pans and men
hungry for their supper try not to let Grandma Dudley catch sight of
them.

Bessie Williams always makes cinnamon buns or doughnuts on rainy days.
She always leaves her kitchen door open while she is doing this because
she says she likes to hear the rain while she is working--that it
soothes her nerves.

So as you come up from around Bailey's strawberry patch and Tumley's
hedge you get a whiff of such deliciousness as makes your mouth water.
And more than likely Bessie sees you and comes running out with a few
samples of her heavenly work. As you dispose of those cinnamon buns