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Old Kurtz, over the ridge, had had his stacked crop of wheat in sheaf burned some scoundrel had put a match to it at night and the farmers round had collected nearly fifty pounds for him. "There is beauty even in this life and in this place. In the blazing drought, when the cattle lie down and cannot rise from weakness, neighbours help neighbours to lift them.
Some of the Indians of the Orinoco held the toad to be the god or lord of the waters, and for that reason feared to kill the creature. They have been known to keep frogs under a pot and to beat them with rods when there was a drought.
Without hesitation or apology, Poppy walked straight through this apartment, and passed out on to the white-planked and white-railed balcony. The dome of the sky was immense and had become perfectly clear, the great clouds having boiled up during the afternoon only to sink away and vanish at sunset, as is their wont in seasons of drought.
In times of drought, if properly propitiated, she would spin light summer clouds out of cobwebs and morning dew, and send them off from the crest of the mountain, flake after flake, like flakes of carded cotton, to float in the air; until, dissolved by the heat of the sun, they would fall in gentle showers, causing the grass to spring, the fruits to ripen, and the corn to grow an inch an hour.
The change in the rock-formation and in the soil, produced a corresponding change in the vegetation. The timber was not so large as it had been, neither did the hills any longer bear the green appearance which had distinguished those we had passed to their very summits. The grass here grew in tufts amidst the sand, and was of a burnt appearance as if it had suffered from drought.
And two dry years in succession meant black ruin for all of us. For all of us in the foothills except Pap Spooner. By some mysterious instinct he had divined and made preparations for a long drought. Being rich, with land in other counties, he was able to move his stock to green pastures. We knew that he was storing up the money sucked by the sun out of us.
In fact, not until darkness fell did he arouse himself sufficiently to rise unsteadily to his feet and to limp away from the bank of the treacherous river. It was the seventh year since the great drought. Choflo, headman, sorcerer and oracle of the Cantanas, scanned the brassy sky and smote his breast with clenched fists.
My mind misgave me that after all it had died a dusty death for lack of water. True, the cactus tribe being succulent plants do not demand much moisture, but I had reason to fear that, in this instance, the principle had been applied too far, and that after copious baths of cold spring water in the first days of its popularity it had eventually perished by drought.
So with wind and calm, rain and drought, and so forth. Always, whether the sun is very much spotted or quite free from spots, something unusual in the way of weather must be going on somewhere, demonstrating in the most significant way the influence of sun-spots or the want of sun-spots on the weather.
Water, as I said before, to moisten our mouths, was now our greatest hardship, for every man had so often drank his own, that we voided scarce anything but blood, and that but a few drops at a time; our mouths and tongues were quite flayed with drought, and our teeth just fallen from our jaws; for though we had tried, by placing all the dead men's jackets and shirts one over another, to strain some of the sea-water through them by small quantities, yet that would not deprive it of its pernicious qualities; and though it refreshed a little in going down, we were so sick, and strained ourselves so much after it, that it came up again, and made us more miserable than before.
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