The men went down to the barn immediately after supper, and when
the dishes were washed, Antonia and I climbed up on the slanting roof of
the chicken-house to watch the clouds. The thunder was loud and metallic,
like the rattle of sheet iron, and the lightning broke in great zigzags
across the heavens, making everything stand out and come close to us for a
moment. Half the sky was chequered with black thunderheads, but all the
west was luminous and clear: in the lightning flashes it looked like deep
blue water, with the sheen of moonlight on it; and the mottled part of the
sky was like marble pavement, like the quay of some splendid seacoast city,
doomed to destruction. Great warm splashes of rain fell on our upturned
faces. One black cloud, no bigger than a little boat, drifted out into the
clear space unattended, and kept moving westward. All about us we could
hear the felty beat of the raindrops on the soft dust of the farmyard.
Grandmother came to the door and said it was late, and we would get wet out
there.
`In a minute we come,' Antonia called back to her. `I like your
grandmother, and all things here,' she sighed. `I wish my papa live to see
this summer. I wish no winter ever come again.'
`It will be summer a long while yet,' I reassured her.
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