"RAINBOW IN THE MORNING"
That was the year noted for a celestial phenomenon of great interest to
astronomers.
We were taking breakfast rather earlier than usual that morning in
August, for a party of us had planned to go blackberrying up at the
"burnt lots."
Three or four years before, forest fires had burned over a large tract
up in the great woods to the north of the old Squire's farm. We had
heard that blackberries were very plentiful there that season; and now
that haying was over, Addison and I had planned to drive up there with
the girls, and Catherine and Thomas Edwards, who wished to go with us.
So far as Addison and I were concerned, the trip was not wholly for
blackberries; we had another motive for going--one that we were keeping
a profound secret. One afternoon late in the preceding fall we had gone
up there to shoot partridges; and Addison, who was much interested in
mineralogy, had come across what he believed to be silver in a ledge.
Every one knows that there is silver in Maine. Not a few know it to
their sorrow; for there is nothing more discouraging than a mine that
yields just a little less than enough to pay running expenses. But to us
boys Addison's discovery suggested the possibilities of vast fortunes.
Addison felt very sure that it was silver, but we decided to say nothing
to any one until we were certain. All that winter, however, we cherished
rosy hopes of soon being wealthy. At the first opportunity we meant to
make a quiet trip up there with hammer and drill to obtain specimens for
assay, but for one reason or another we did not get round to it until
August, when we planned the blackberrying excursion.
While we were at the breakfast table that morning there came a
thundershower, and a thundershower in the early morning is unusual in
Maine. The sun had risen clear, but a black cloud rose in the west, the
sky darkened suddenly, and so heavy a shower fell that at first we
thought we should have to give up the trip.
But the shower ceased as suddenly as it had begun, and the sun shone out
again. Ellen, who had gone to the pantry for something, called to us
that there was a bright rainbow in the northwest.
"Do come here to the back window!" she cried. "It's a lovely one!"
Sure enough, there was a vivid rainbow; the bright arch spanned the
whole northwestern sky over the great woods.
"Rainbow in the morning,
Good sailors take warning,"
the old Squire remarked, smiling. "Better take your coats and umbrellas
with you to-day."
We did not know then how many times during that day our thoughts would
go back to the rainbow and the old superstition.
After breakfast we hitched up Old Sol, drove round by the Edwardses' to
pick up Tom and Kate, and from there followed the lumber road into the
great woods, to Otter Brook. The "burnt lots" were perhaps a mile beyond
the brook.
Addison and I picked blackberries for a while with the others; then,
watching our chance, we stole away and made for the ledges, a mile or
two to the northeast.
I had managed to bring a drill hammer along in my basket, wrapped up in
my jacket; and Addison had brought a short drill in his pocket. We found
the ledge where Addison had made his discovery and had no great trouble
in chipping off some specimens. I may add here that the specimens later
proved to contain silver--in small quantities. I still have a few of
them--mementos of youthful hopes that faded early in the light of
greater knowledge.
We followed the ledges off to the northeast over several craggy hills.
At one place we found many exfoliating lumps of mica; we cleaved out
sheets of it nearly a foot square, which Addison believed might prove
valuable for stove doors.
While pottering with the mica, I accidentally broke into a kind of
cavity, or pocket, in the ledge, partly filled with disintegrated rock;
and on clearing out the loose stuff from this pocket we came upon a
beautiful three-sided crystal about two inches long, like a prism, green
in color, except at one end, where it shaded to pink.
It was a tourmaline crystal, similar to certain fine ones that have been
found some miles to the eastward, at the now world-famous Mount Mica. At
that time we did not know what it was, but, thinking that it might be
valuable, we searched the pocket for other crystals, but found no more.
We had both become so much interested in searching for minerals that we
had quite forgotten our luncheon. The sky, I remember, was overcast and
the sun obscured; it was also very smoky from forest fires, which in
those days were nearly always burning somewhere to the north of us
during the summer.
But presently, as Addison was thumping away with the hammer, I noticed
that it was growing dark. At first I thought that it was merely a darker
cloud above the smoke that had drifted over the sun, and said nothing;
but the sky continued to darken, and soon Addison noticed it.
"Another shower coming, I guess," he said, looking up. "Don't see any
particular clouds, though. I wonder what makes it so dark?"
"It seems just like night coming on," said I. "But it isn't so late as
all that, is it?"
"No!" exclaimed Addison. "It isn't night yet, I know!" And he hastily
took out Theodora's watch, which she had intrusted to him to carry that
day, so that we should know when to start for home. "It's only half past
three, and the sun doesn't set now till after seven o'clock."
We hammered at the ledge again for a while; but still it grew darker.
"Well, this beats me!" Addison exclaimed; and again he surveyed the sky.
"That watch hasn't stopped, has it?" I said; for night was plainly
falling.
Addison hastily looked again.
"No, it's ticking all right," he said. "Theodora's watch never stops,
you know." It was a fine watch that her father had left to her.
By that time it was so dark that we could hardly see the hands on the
watch; and although the day had been warm, I noticed a distinct change
in the temperature--a chill. Somewhere in the woods an owl began to hoot
dismally, as owls do at night; and from a ledge a little distance from
the one on which we stood a whippoorwill began to chant.
Night was evidently descending on the earth--at four o'clock of an
August afternoon! We stared round and then looked at each other,
bewildered.
"Addison, what do you make of this!" I cried.
Thoughts of that rainbow in the morning had flashed through my mind; and
with it came a cold touch of superstitious fear, such as I had never
felt in my life before. In that moment I realized what the fears of the
ignorant must have been through all the past ages of the world. It is a
fear that takes away your reason. I could have cried out, or run, or
done any other foolish thing.
Without saying a word, Addison put the tourmaline crystal into his
pocket and picked up the drill and the little bundle of silver-ore
specimens, which to carry the more easily he had tied up in his
handkerchief.
"Come on," he said in a queer, low tone. "Let's go find Theodora and
Nell. I guess we'd better go home--if it's coming on night in the middle
of the afternoon."
He tried to laugh, for Addison had always prided himself on being free
from all superstition. But I saw that he was startled; and he admitted
afterwards that he, too, had remembered about that rainbow in the
morning, and had also thought of the comet that had appeared a few years
before and that many people believed to presage the end of the world.
We started to run back, but it had already grown so dark that we had to
pay special heed to our steps. We could not walk fast. To this day I
remember how strange and solemn the chanting of the whippoorwills and
the hoarse _skook_! of the nighthawks sounded to me. No doubt I was
frightened. It was exactly like evening; the same chill was in the air.
At last we reached the place where we had left the others, but they were
not there. Addison called to Theodora and Ellen several times in low,
suppressed tones; I, too, felt a great disinclination to shout or speak
aloud.
"I guess they've all gone back where we left the wagon," Addison said at
last.
We made our way through the tangled bushes, brush and woods, down to
Otter Brook. In the darkness we went a little astray from the place
where we had unharnessed the horse; but presently, as we were moving
about in the brushwood, we heard a low voice say:
"Is that you, Ad?"
It was Theodora; and immediately we came upon them all, sitting together
forlornly there in the wagon. They had hitched up Old Sol and were
anxiously waiting for us in order to start for home. The strange
phenomenon seemed to have dazed them; they sat there in the dark as
silent as so many mice.
"Hello, girls!" Addison exclaimed. "Are you all there? Quite dark, isn't
it?"
"Oh, Ad, what do you think this is?" Theodora asked, still in the same
hushed voice.
"Well, I think it is _dark_," replied Addison, trying to appear
unconcerned.
"Don't laugh, Ad," said Theodora solemnly. "Something awful has
happened."
"And where have you two been so long?" asked Catherine. "We thought you
were lost. We thought you would never come. What time is it?"
We struck a match and looked. It was nearly half past four.
"Oh, get in, Ad, and take the reins! Let's go home!" Ellen pleaded.
"Yes, Ad, let's go home, if we can get there," said Tom Edwards. "What
d'ye suppose it is, anyhow?"
"_Dark!_" exclaimed Addison hardily. "Just plain dark!"
"Oh, Addison!" exclaimed Theodora reprovingly. "Don't try to joke about
a thing like this."
"It may be the end of the world," Ellen murmured.
"The world has had a good many ends to it," said Addison. "Which end do
you think this is, Nell?"
But neither Ellen nor Theodora cared to reply to him. Their low,
frightened voices increased my uneasiness. I could think of nothing
except that rainbow in the morning; "morning," "warning," seemed to ring
in my ears.
We climbed into the wagon and started homeward, but it was so dark that
we had to plod along slowly. Old Sol was unusually torpid, as if the
ominous obscurity had dazed him, too. After a time he stopped short and
snorted; we heard the brush crackle and caught a glimpse of a large
animal crossing the road ahead of us.
"That's a bear," Thomas said. "Bears are out, just as if it were night."
Some minutes passed before we could make Old Sol go on; and again we
heard owls hooting in the woods.
Long before we got down to the cleared land, however, the sky began
gradually to grow lighter. We all noticed it, and a feeling of relief
stole over us. In the course of twenty minutes it became so light that
we could discern objects round us quite plainly. The night chill, too,
seemed to go from the air.
Suddenly, as we rattled along, Addison jumped up from his seat and
turned to us. "I know now what this is!" he cried. "Why didn't I think
of it before?"
"What is it--if you know?" cried Catherine and Theodora at once.
"The eclipse! The total eclipse of the sun!" exclaimed Addison. "I
remember now reading something about it in the _Maine Farmer_ a
fortnight ago. It was to be on the 7th--and this is it!"
At that time advance notices of such phenomena were not so widely
published as they are now; at the old farm, too, we did not take a daily
newspaper. So one of the great astronomical events of the last century
had come and gone, and we had not known what it was until it was over.
Except for the dun canopy of smoke and clouds over the sun we should
have guessed at once, of course, the cause of the darkness; but as it
was, the eclipse had given us an anxious afternoon; and although the
rainbow in the morning had probably not the slightest connection with
the eclipse,--indeed, could not have had,--it had greatly heightened the
feeling of awe and superstitious dread with which we had beheld night
fall in the middle of the afternoon!
By the time we got home it was light again. As we drove into the yard,
the old Squire came out, smiling. "Was it a little dark up where you
were blackberrying a while ago?" he asked.
"Well, _just_ a little dark, sir," Addison replied, with a smile as
droll as his own. "But I suppose it was all because of that rainbow in
the morning that you told us to look out for."