The big drops began to fall, faster and faster, until a white sheet of rain swept across the garden almost before she could seek refuge in the open door of the pool shed.
How it poured, so that trickling streams were running down the paths and pools were collecting before her very feet! What was it doing to the garden laid out on the long slope, all that flood of water rushing from the top of the hill to the valley below? A good many times she had heard Michael comment to Miss Miranda on just such a possibility.
"'Tis a good bit of ground you have, but steeper by far than it should be. In grass it was well enough, but in garden stuff, I'm not so certain. A hard rain on this hillside would cut the rows and wash out the young plants something cruel. I wish it were more of a level."
Just what he had dreaded was evidently happening now. Rain and wind rushed furiously over the garden, flattening the peas, tearing at the furrows, plowing deep trenches where rivulets of water went streaming down. Once in a quieter shower she had seen Michael working with a hoe, opening proper channels to carry off the rain, making little ditches here and there where the water could flow away without doing harm. It was plain that if the garden was to be saved from the ravages of this un-
