undantly. Also can any understand the spreadings of the clouds, or the
noise of his tabernacle?"

Very peaceful were the next few weeks. All nature seemed to rejoice in
the fine weather. The corn-blades shot up strong and tall. They burst
into flowers and gradually ripened into ears of grain. But alas! the
Master of the Harvest had still some fault to find. He looked at the
ears and saw that they were small. He grumbled and said:--

"The yield will be less than it ought to be. The harvest will be bad."

And the voice of his discontent was breathed over the cornfield where
the plants were growing and growing. They shuddered and murmured: "How
thankless to complain! Are we not growing as fast as we can? If we were
idle would we bear wheat-ears at all? How thankless to complain!"

Meanwhile a few weeks went by and a drought settled on the land. Rain
was needed, so that the corn-ears might fill. And behold, while the
wish for rain was yet on the Master's lips, the sky became full of
heavy clouds, darkness spread over the land, a wild wind arose, and the
roaring of thunder announced a storm. And such a storm! Along the ridges
of corn-plants drove the rain-laden wind, and the plants bent down
before it and rose again like the waves of the sea. They bowed down and
they rose up. Only where the whirlwind was the strongest they fell to
the ground and could not rise again.

And when the storm was over, the Master of the Harvest saw here
and there patches of over-weighted corn, yet dripping from the
thunder-shower, and he grew angry with them, and forgot to think of the
long ridges where the corn-plants were still standing tall and strong,
and where the corn-ears were swelling and rejoicing.

His face grew darker than ever. He railed against the rain. He railed
against the sun because it did not shine. He blamed the wheat because it
might perish before the harvest.

"But why does he always complain?" moaned the corn-plants. "Have we not
done our best from the first? Has not God's blessing been with us? Are
we not growing daily more beautiful in strength and hope? Why does not
the Master trust, as we do, in the future richness of the harvest?"

Of all this the Master of the Harvest heard nothing. But his wife wrote
on the flyleaf of her Book: "He watereth the hills from his chambers,
the earth is satisfied with the fruit of thy works. He causeth the grass
to grow for the cattle and herb for the service of man, that he may
br