One morning late in September, a warm, fall rain, accompanied by a heavy wind, drove the leaves, already withering after the hot, dry summer, capering up and down the streets, shaking and twisting the branches of the trees, forcing the birds to seek shelter in the eaves under the roof-cornices. In such refuge, English sparrows, in profusion, sat in long, quarrelling rows, like silly curates chattering at a picnic.
Presently the wind died down and the rain-drops fell more slowly until, at last, they stopped falling altogether. Now the clouds rolled rapidly away, unveiling the sun, while on all the lawns hopped robins and blue jays, eager to peck up the angle-worms which had been washed to the surface.
A little while after the sun appeared, Mrs. Bierbauer, like a figure in one of the old animated barometers, opened her screen-door and issued forth, bearing a broom, with which she began to sweep the leaves from her porch. This duty accomplished, after she had wiped the moisture from her rocking-chair with a towel, she sat down and began to rock slowly back and forth, croaking softly to herself:
