When they looked up, the meadow grasses were bend ing low
before a sudden wind, and the trees were swaying to and fro as if
in terror, against the background of an angry sky.
"Wow!" said Pierre. "I guess we're in for it! We can't possibly
get home before it breaks."
"Oh," gasped Pierrette, as another peal of thunder shook the air,
"I don't want to stay out in it. What shall we do?"
Pierre looked about him. A little distance beyond the brook,
toward the camp, there was a straw-stack with a rough straw-
thatched shed beside it, half hidden under a group of small
trees. Pierre pointed to it. "We'll leave the basket here," he
said, "and hide under the straw until the storm is over. Then we
can come back again, get it, and go home."
Another clap of thunder, louder still, sent them flying on their
way, and they did not speak again until they were under the
shelter of the shed. The first big drops fell as they reached it,
and then the storm broke in a fury of wind and water. The
children cowered against the stack itself as far as possible out
of reach of the driving rain.
They had been there but a few moments, when they heard a new
sound in addition to the roar of the wind and the patter of the
rain upon the leaves. It was the dull tread of heavy footsteps,
and they were surprised to see a man running toward the straw-
stack, his head bent to shield his face from the rain, under the
brim of an old hat. His clothes were rough and unkempt, and
altogether his appearance was so forbidding that the children
instinctively dived under the straw at the edge of the stack like
frightened mice, and burrowed backward until they were completely
hidden, though they could still peep out through the loose straw.
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