The stillness and look of intermission in the woods on a really
rainy day is something worth getting wet to observe. It is like Sunday in
London, or Fourth of July in a country town which has gone bodily to a
picnic in the next village. The strays who are out seem like accidentally
arrived people, who have lost their way. One cannot fancy a caterpillar's
being otherwise than very uncomfortable in wet hair; and what can there be
for butterflies and dragon-flies to do, in the close corners into which
they creep, with wings shut up as tight as an umbrella? The beasts fare
better, being clothed in hides. Those whom we oftenest see out in rains
(cows and oxen and horses) keep straight on with their perpetual munching,
as content wet as dry, though occasionally we see them accept the partial
shelter of a tree from a particularly hard shower.
Hens are the forlornest of all created animals when it rains. Who can help
laughing at sight of a flock of them huddled up under lee of a barn, limp,
draggled, spiritless, shifting from one leg to the other, with their silly
heads hanging inert to right or left, looking as if they would die for
want of a yawn? One sees just such groups of other two-legged creatures in
parlors, under similar circumstances.
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