Leah Mordecai, page 149 by Belle Kendrick Abbott
<< Return to Title Details & Download150
ense heat. One afternoon, toward the latter part of July, clouds dark and angry overcast the sky, and peals of thunder and flashes of lightning threatened a terrific storm. Pedestrians hurried homeward, and man and beast sought safety under shelter. The waters of the quiet harbor, tossed by rude winds, grew angry and rose in white-capped breakers, that broke against the wharves, piers, and fortresses, as far as the eye could see. Sea-gulls screamed and flew wildly about at this ominous appearance of the heavens, while the songsters of the woods, and the pigeons of the barn-yard, sought shelter from the approaching tempest. At night-fall the rain descended in torrents.
Safely sheltered in his comfortable home, Mr. Mordecai sat for an hour or more, watching, from his library window, the fury of the storm. The tall, graceful cedars and olive trees that adorned the front and side gardens of his home, were swaying in the wind which rudely snatched from their trellises the delicate jessamine and honeysuckle vines that lent such delicious odor to the evening winds. It tore the flowers from their stems, and the rain pelted them into the earth in its fury. Leaves were whisked from their branches, and blown out of sight in a twinkle. A weak-hinged window-shutter of the attic was ruthlessly torn away and pitched headlong into the street. All this Mr. Mordecai watched in amazement, and then, as if some sudden apparition of thought or of sight had appeared before him, he turned from the window with a shudder, and said:
"This is a devilish wild night. I'll drop the curtain."
Seating himself then, by a brightly-shining lamp-the Queen City gas works had been destroyed by the shelling guns-he clasped his arms across his breast, and looked steadily up toward the ticking clock upon the mantel. Thus absorbed in reverie, he sat for an hour; and was only disturbed then by a loud rapping at the front door.
"By Jerusalem! who can be out this wild night?"
The rapping sounded again, louder than before. < previous next >