ielefeld and Leipsic).

One hot summer morning a little Cloud rose out of the sea and floated
lightly and happily across the blue sky. Far below lay the earth,
brown, dry, and desolate, from drouth. The little Cloud could see the
poor people of the earth working and suffering in the hot fields, while
she herself floated on the morning breeze, hither and thither, without
a care.

"Oh, if I could only help the poor people down there!" she thought.
"If I could but make their work easier, or give the hungry ones food,
or the thirsty a drink!"

And as the day passed, and the Cloud became larger, this wish to do
something for the people of earth was ever greater in her heart.

On earth it grew hotter and hotter; the sun burned down so fiercely
that the people were fainting in its rays; it seemed as if they must
die of heat, and yet they were obliged to go on with their work, for
they were very poor. Sometimes they stood and looked up at the Cloud,
as if they were praying, and saying, "Ah, if you could help us!"

"I will help you; I will!" said the Cloud. And she began to sink softly
down toward the earth.

But suddenly, as she floated down, she remembered something which had
been told her when she was a tiny Cloud-child, in the lap of Mother
Ocean: it had been whispered that if the Clouds go too near the earth
they die. When she remembered this she held herself from sinking, and
swayed here and there on the breeze, thinking,--thinking. But at last
she stood quite still, and spoke boldly and proudly. She said, "Men of
earth, I will help you, come what may!"

The thought made her suddenly marvelously big and strong and powerful.
Never had she dreamed that she could be so big. Like a mighty angel of
blessing she stood above the earth, and lifted her head and spread her
wings far over the fields and woods. She was so great, so majestic,
that men and animals were awe-struck at the sight; the trees and the
grasses bowed before her; yet all the earth-creatures felt that she
meant them well.

"Yes, I will help you," cried the Cloud once more. "Take me to
yourselves; I will give my life for you!"

As she said the words a wonderful light glowed from her heart, the
sound of thunder rolled through the sky, and a love greater than words
can tell filled the Cloud; down, down, close to the earth she swept,
and gave up her life in a blessed, healing shower of rain.

That rain was the Cloud's great deed; it was her death,