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Porter had to shout to be heard above the noise of the storm; for the thunder was very loud, and the patter of the rain drops, and the rattle of the hail made a very great racket indeed. When Daddy Blake turned around the corner of the house and started down the main path that led through the vegetable garden, he saw a strange sight.
"Give me your hand," she said. He took one of hers, instead, but she raised his to her lips and kissed it. Then she went back to her sister, and the two clung together in silence, listening to the patter of broken adobe on the floor. At first it was but as a heavy shower of rain; then it increased in violence like the rattle of hail.
The half-breed insisted that he had really heard the patter of the wolves' feet on the snow-crust, but the timber cruiser laughed at him, and lay down to sleep again. An hour later the performance was repeated, and this time the white man was angry. "Don't you wake me up again, Louis. You're so rattled you don't know what you're doing."
These sentences were not given all at once, but murmured from time to time at his unsympathetic audience outside. Patter, patter, patter, drip, drip, drip! steady, uncompromising business. It was all the answer the clouds vouchsafed him. With the listener inside it was different. The interested look changed to an eager one.
"Oh, dear! it rains; and we can't go fairy-hunting at all," said Daisy next morning, as the patter on the window-pane woke her up, and Aunt Wee came in to dress her. "Yes, we can, dear; jump up, and see what a funny place I'll take you to." Daisy thought the rain would be a capital excuse for lying in bed; for she still liked to cuddle and drowse in her cosey, warm nest.
We're going to reap this harvest all alone; we're going to Chicago you clean off the table! And Washington, the Home of Freedom and Tammany Tigers, shoves a prohibitive Bill through the Legislature, as Parkes did in Sydney; only Parkes talked a lot of Sunday-school business about the solidarity of the British race, and Australia for the Australians, and all that patter; and the Oregonian showed his dirty palm of selfishness straight out, and didn't blush either.
Who cares to patter after a sly old dog fox, that, fat and wary, leads the pack a tedious, interminable wind, in and out through gorse and spinney, bricks himself up in a drain, and takes an hour to be dug out, dodges about till twilight, and makes the hounds pick the scent slowly and wretchedly over marsh and through water?
Then with a disappointed sigh he sank back. On the roof fell the heavy patter of raindrops. After a time he arose and pulled aside the curtains of a window. The nearer world was dripping; the farther world was hidden or obscured by long veils of rain, driven in ragged clouds before a west wind.
Old friends were greeting each other, and familiar forms passing in at the church door, as Job led Andy Malden, leaning on his cane, to the family pew. The church was a bower of flowers, the songs of birds rang out from gayly bedecked cages, and the patter of children's feet was heard in the aisle. It was a beautiful service.
At daylight I was awakened by a yelping of shrill voices, accompanied by a great commotion in the water, and the short, bullying blasts of a steam-whistle. Falk with his tug had come for me. I began to dress. It was remarkable that the answering noise on board my ship together with the patter of feet above my head ceased suddenly.
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