your umbrella. Not too high nor too low, not black nor blue, but the
form and hue of wet, unbleached linen. You see the river water in them;
they are heavy-laden, and move slow. Sometimes they develop what are
called "mares' tails,"--small cloud-forms here and there against a
heavy background, that look like the stroke of a brush, or the
streaming tail of a charger. Sometimes a few under-clouds will be
combed and groomed by the winds or other meteoric agencies at work, as
if for a race. I have seen coming storms develop well-defined
vertebræ,--a long backbone of cloud, with the articulations and
processes clearly marked. Any of these forms, changing, growing, denote
rain, because they show unusual agencies at work. The storm is brewing
and fermenting. "See those cowlicks," said an old farmer, pointing to
certain patches on the clouds; "they mean rain." Another time, he said
the clouds were "making bag," had growing udders, and that it would
rain before night, as it did. This reminded me that the Orientals speak
of the clouds as cows which the winds herd and milk.

In the winter, we see the sun wading in snow. The morning has perhaps
been clear, but in the afternoon a bank of gray filmy or cirrus cloud
meets him in the west, and he sinks deeper and deeper into it, till, at
his going down, his muffled beams are entirely hidden. Then, on the
morrow, _not_

"Announced by all the trumpets of the sky,"

but silent as night, the white legions are here.

The old signs seldom fail,--a red and angry sunrise, or flushed clouds
at evening. Many a hope of rain have I seen dashed by a painted sky at
sunset. There is truth in the old couplet, too:--