Rainmaker

“ It rays out and draws to it some floating films from secret cañons. Rain begins, "slow dropping veil of thinnest lawn;" a wind comes up and drives the formless thing across a meadow, or a dull lake pitted by the glancing drops, dissolving as it drives. Such rains relieve like tears.
The same season brings the rains that have work to do, ploughing storms that alter the face of things. These come with thunder and the play of live fire along the rocks. They come with great winds that try the pines for their work upon the seas and strike out the unfit. ”

“ The length of the blossom stalk conforms to the rounded contour of the plant, and of these there will be a million moving indescribably in the airy current that flows down the swale of the wash.
There is always a little wind on the mesa, a sliding current of cooler air going down the face of the mountain of its own momentum, but not to disturb the silence of great space. Passing the wide mouths of canons, one gets the effect of whatever is doing in them, openly or behind a screen of cloud,—thunder of falls, wind in the pine leaves, or rush and roar of rain. ”

“ The masses of water, hissing and smoking under the furious pelting of the rain, flung themselves upon the hapless Bluebird, laboring heavily in the trough of the waves, or staggering over their summits. A constant glare lit the heaving, tossing world of waters, and the air became one roar of wind, rain, and thunder. ”

“ The pools and small water-holes begin to dry up under the great heat; the earth becomes caked and hard. Then the wind begins to blow from the south-west, fitfully at first, but growing steadier and stronger every day. A little rain falls, the last before the long drought sets in. The hot, dry wind sweeps over the trees. The grass and the shrubs die down; the leaves on the small trees shrivel up, and grow black and fall. The grey earth crumbles into dust, and splits beneath the sun. ”

“ One is almost tempted to think that the end is approaching. The very "flood gates of heaven" seem opened, and nature is dissolving. Such a body of rain is falling that the view of all above is obscured by the amazing fall of rain-drops. Think of the countless numbers of leaves in this forest, and that every leaf drops ten to twenty times per minute, and that from the soaking ground rises a grey cloud of minute rain in vapour, and that the air is full of floating globules of water and flying shreds of leaves! ”

“ All along the middle garden walk the Gay Folk are holding up great fluted cups of ruby and gold and pearl. It is not raining now, but it rained all day—a rain scented with lilacs. I like all kinds of weather and I like rainy days—soft, misty, rainy days when the Wind Woman, just shakes the tops of the spruces gently; and wild, tempestuous, streaming rainy days. I like being shut in by the rain—I like to hear it thudding on the roof, and beating on the panes and pouring off the eaves, while the Wind Woman skirls like a mad old witch in the woods, and through the garden. ”

“ A storm dissipates it at once, while the cessation of the rain is preceded by the return and increased power of scent. A cold, dry easterly wind condenses and absorbs it, and this is even more speedily and irretrievably done by superabundant moisture. On fallows and beaten roads the scent rarely lies well, for there is nothing to detain it, and it is swept away in a moment; while over a luxuriant pasture, or by the hedge-row, or on the coppice, it lingers, clinging to the grass or the bushes. ”

“ In winter rain takes a wider sweep.
From the elevation of the earthwork on the downs—with a view of mile after mile of plain and vale below—it is easy on a showery summer day to observe the narrow limits of the rain. Dusky streamers, like the train of a vast dark robe, slope downwards from the blacker water-carrying cloud above—downwards and backwards, the upper cloud travelling faster than the falling drops. Between the hill and the rain yonder intervenes a broad space of several miles, and beyond it again stretches a clear opening to the horizon. ”

“ The method adopted by the rain-maker is commonly based on homoeopathic or imitative magic: he seeks to produce rain by imitating it.
Of the things which the public magician sets himself to do for the good of the tribe, one of the chief is to control the weather and especially to ensure an adequate fall of rain. Water is the first essential of life, and in most countries the supply of it depends upon showers. Without rain vegetation withers, animals and men languish and die. ”

“ Men speculate on the clouds; they begin to calculate how long it will be, if no rain falls, before the potatoes will suffer; the oats, the grass, the corn—everything! To be sure, nothing is yet suffering; but then—
Henry Ward Beecher.
Rain, rain, rain! All day, all night, steady raining. Will it never stop? The hay is out and spoiling. The rain washes the garden. All things have drunk their fill. The springs revive, the meadows are wet; the rivers run discolored with soil from every hill.
Smoking cattle reek under the sheds. Hens, and fowl in general, shelter and plume. The sky is leaden. ”

“ None but those who have been under the influence of hill-rains, can have any idea of their tremendous force. It is like the downpour of a cataract. The rain falls in sheets, in waves, almost solid. Nothing but the stiffest weather-proof can keep the water out.
A FURIOUS STORM.
Edward’s first thought was shelter! But where could he find it? Not a house was to be seen; not a wall, not a tree, not a bush. He could not find even a hole in a sandbank. There was nothing that he could see around him but a dreary, bleak, widespread moor. ”

“ And, like pebbles and other little people, rivers love to play in the rain. My! What a time! In a storm, with a gray flood pouring from the sky, you hear, mingled with the voice of wind and rain, the swash and gurgle of the eddies as the river goes along in its dance, wild with the joy of it all. In a mountain stream during a heavy rain, with wind, you can also hear the waves dashing against the rocks along the shore or in the stream, and the smothered, bumping, rumbling made by the boulders on the bottom knocking against each other. ”

“ Now, as soon as this rain announces itself, by thunder or hail, every one of you should protect himself from the air; and, as well before as after the rain, kindle a large fire of vine-wood, green laurel, or other green wood; wormwood and chamomile should also be burnt in great quantity in the market places, in other densely inhabited localities, and in the houses. Until the earth is again completely dry, and for three days afterwards, no one ought to go abroad in the fields. ”

“ Soon came a few big drops of rain, then a big wind, and as that lulled, more rain. Then came thunder and lightning, the air grew bitterly cold, and there came a pitiless hailstorm, hailstones bigger than a duck's egg fell, cutting the leaves from the trees and bruising their bark. ”

“ For hours the downpour continues, but with the coming of the rain the tempest abates, and a fresh cooling breeze refreshes man and beast and plant. Gradually the flashes become fewer and the peals of thunder less violent, the rain-spout becomes a shower, and this ends in a gentle drizzle; the sky clears, the clouds scatter, and the sun breaks forth in splendour. ”

“ The soil is very light, and dries so quickly that, after the heaviest thunder-shower, I can walk over any of my paths in my thin shoes; and to keep the garden even moderately damp it should pour with rain regularly every day for three hours. My only means of getting water is to go to the pump near the house, or to the little stream that forms my eastern boundary, and the little stream dries up too unless there has been rain, and is at the best of times difficult to get at, having steep banks covered with forget-me-nots. ”

“ The rain that fills the springs high up among the hills, where a little brook has its source—the rain that feeds the brook as it flows, and other brooks that join it on its way, until it becomes the river that descends in the water-fall. And what is the source of the rain? The sun, whose rays turn the waters of the earth to vapor, and lift them up to the clouds, whence they fall upon the hills. ”

“ Thunder-storms prowl and growl round the belted hills, spit themselves away in a few drops of rain, and leave the air more dead than before. In the woods, where even the faithful springs are beginning to run low, the pines and balsams have thrown out all their fragrance upon the heat and wait for the wind to bring news of the rain. ”

“ For their crops and above all for their pastures they depend on the regularity of the rains: in seasons of prolonged drought they are said to be reduced to great extremities. Hence the rain-maker is a very important personage among them to day; indeed the men in authority whom travellers dub chiefs or sheikhs are in fact the actual or potential rain-makers of the tribe or community. Each of them is believed to be animated by the spirit of a great rain-maker, which has come down to him through a succession of rain-makers ”

“ The soft wind lifts the rain-mist, flurries it, and spends
Its grief in mournful sighs, drifting from field to field,
Soaking the draggled sprays which the low hedges wield
As they labour in the wet and the load of the wind.
The last light is dimming; night comes on behind. ”

“ The stroke of the raindrop accomplishes something, though but little; the direct washing action of the brooklets which form during times of heavy rain, but dry out at the close of the storm, do a good deal of the work; thawing and freezing of the water contained in the mass of detritus help the movement, for, although the thrust is in both directions, it is most effective downhill; the wedges of tree roots, which often penetrate between and under the stones, and there expand in their process of growth, likewise assist the downward motion. ”

“ If some days pass without rain, it gives the magician an opportunity for claiming fresh presents, on the ground that the smallness of the offered gifts hinders the coming of the rain.” When the cupidity of the rain-maker is satisfied, he goes to work in the usual way, pouring water over two flat stones, one called the male and the other the female, till they are covered to a depth of three inches. ”

“ The grumbling rain in a foamy gray tide
From the rusty roof-spouts is welling.
Now, weather-cock, turn in the wind and hark
What the rain-spouts sing as the day grows dark.—
"Hoohoo!" comes his crow out-swelling. ”

“ Rapidly does the landscape brighten under the influence of the welcome shower; and as it becomes more rich and extensive, all nature seems to rise up and rejoice. The birds chirp merrily among the foliage; the flowers raise their drooping heads, and the thirsty ground drinks in with eager haste the mellowing rains. All day long, perhaps, does the rain continue to fall, until the earth is fully moistened and “enriched with vegetable life.” At length, towards evening, the sun peeps out from p. 13among the broken clouds, and lights up, by his sudden radiance, the lovely scene. ”

“ Surface Sprinkling.—This method seems to be the closest imitation of the natural rainfall; and yet it is in practice about the most wasteful and least satisfactory of all. It is difficult of application on any large scale, from obvious causes; on the small scale, in gardens and on lawns, its disadvantages become amply apparent. As usually practiced, from a rose spout or spray nozzle, the water falls much more abundantly than in the case of any desirable rain, within the short time allowed by the patience of the operator. ”

“ It may nevertheless be true that snows of long duration in our winters may be less injurious to vegetation than great rains and shorter frosts, for two reasons. 1. Because great rains carry down many thousand pounds worth of the best part of the manure off the lands into the sea, whereas snow dissolves more gradually and thence carries away less from the land; any one may distinguish a snow-flood from a rain-flood by the transparency of the water. ”

“ Rain-makers of our time bang and thrash the air, hoping to cause rain by concussion. They may well be compared to impatient children hammering on reservoir walls in a vain endeavor to make the water flow. Rain-control is a scientific possibility. Successful rain engineers will come in time, we venture to predict, from the ranks of those who study and clearly understand the physical processes of cloud formation. ”

“ It is when the rain collects in brooks and forms rivers that it is most busy in sculpturing the land. Look out some day into the road or the garden where the ground slopes a little, and watch what happens during a shower of rain. First the rain-drops run together in every little hollow of the ground, then the water begins to flow along any ruts or channels it can find, lying here and there in pools, but always making its way gradually down the slope. ”

“ You wander indefinitely in a beaded coat, wet to the skin of your legs, sit on moss-clad rocks and stumps, and hear the lisping of migrating sparrows flitting amid the shrub oaks, sit long at a time, still, and have your thoughts. A rain which is as serene as fair weather, suggesting fairer weather than was ever seen. You could hug the clods that defile you. You feel the fertilizing influence of the rain in your mind. The part of you that is wettest is fullest of life, like the lichens. ”

“ Instead of carrying the heat of the air, and of the surface of the ground, to the subsoil, the rain only adds so much to the amount of water to be evaporated, and increases, by so much, the chilling effect of evaporation. ”