to and fro. The birds flew towards the orchards and the deep woods;
the swallows swooped restlessly round the barns, and hid themselves
under the eaves or in the shadow of deserted nests.

The rain now fell in sheets.

"Hurry up 'n' git under cover, Jabe," said Brad Gibson;
"you're jest the kind of a pole to draw lightnin'!"

"You hain't, then!" retorted Jabe. "There ain't enough o'
you fer lightnin' to ketch holt of!"

Suddenly a ghastly streak of light leaped out of a cloud,
and then another, till the sky seemed lit up by cataracts
of flame. A breath of wind sprang into the still air.
Then a deafening crash, clap, crack, roar, peal! and as Jabe
Slocum looked out of a protecting shed door, he saw a fiery
ball burst from the clouds, shooting brazen arrows as it fell.
Within the instant the meeting-house steeple broke into a tongue
of flame, and then, looking towards home, he fancied
that the fireball dropped to earth in Squire Bean's meadow.

The wind blew more fiercely now. There was a sudden
crackling of wood, falling of old timers, and breaking of glass.
The deadly fluid ran in a winding course down a great maple
by the shed, leaving a narrow charred channel through the bark
to tell how it passed to earth. A sombre pine stood up,
black and burned, its heart gaping through a ghastly wound
in the split trunk.