rth's blood like a
vampire; when rivers shrink, streams fail, springs perish; when the
grass whitens and crackles under your feet; when the turf turns to
dust; when the fields are like tinder; when the air is the breath of an
oven; when even the merciful dews are withheld, and the morning is no
fresher than the evening; when the friendly road is a desert, and the
green woods like a sick-chamber; when the sky becomes tarnished and
opaque with dust and smoke; when the shingles on the houses curl up,
the clapboards warp, the paint blisters, the joints open; when the
cattle rove disconsolate and the hive-bee comes home empty; when
the earth gapes and all nature looks widowed, and deserted, and
heart-broken,--in such a time, what thing that has life does not
sympathize and suffer with the general distress?

The drought of the summer and early fall of 1876 was one of those
severe stresses of weather that make the oldest inhabitant search his
memory for a parallel. For nearly three months there was no rain to wet
the ground. Large forest trees withered and cast their leaves. In
spots, the mountains looked as if they had been scorched by fire. The
salt sea-water came up the Hudson ninety miles, when ordinarily it
scarcely comes forty. Toward the last, the capacity of the atmosphere
to absorb and dissipate the smoke was exhausted, and innumerable fires
in forests and peat-swamps made the days and the weeks--not blue, but a
dirty yellowish white. There was not enough moisture in the air to take
the sting out of the smoke, and it smarted the nose. The sun was red
and dim even at midday, and at his rising and setting he was as
harmless to the eye as a crimson shield or a painted moon. The
meteorological conditions seemed the farthest possible remove from
those that produce rain, or even dew. Every sign was negatived. Some
malevolent spirit seemed abroad in the air, that rendered abortive
every effort of the gentler divinities to send succor. The clouds would
gather back in the mountains, the thunder would growl, the tall masses
would rise up and advance threateningly, then suddenly cower, their
strength and purpose ooze away; they flattened out; the hot, parched
breath of the earth smote them; the dark, heavy masses were re-resolved
into thin vapor, and the sky came through where but a few moments
before there had appeared to be deep behind deep of water-logged
clouds. Sometimes a cloud would pass by, and one could see trailing
be