He was in the midst of his description when a fearfully vivid flash lit up the interior of the car as brightly as day.  As it did so The Wren uttered a sharp cry.

“What is it, dear?  Afraid of the lightning?” asked Miss Prescott, while a thunder volley boomed and reverberated.

“No, no,” shivered the child, drawing closer to her, “but when I see a flash like that I sometimes remember.”

“Remember what?” asked Miss Prescott tenderly.

“Oh, I don’t know,” wailed the child, “people and places.  They come for a moment and then disappear again as quickly as they came.”

CHAPTER V.

PEGGY’S THOUGHTFULNESS SAVES THE FARM.

Flash after flash, roar after roar, the lightning and thunder crashed and blazed as the full fury of the storm struck in.  Miss Prescott, who was in deadly fear of lightning, covered her eyes with a thick veil and sank back in the cushions of the tonneau.

But the rest of the party regarded the furious storm with interest.  The rain was coming down in sheets, but not one drop penetrated the water-proof top of the big touring car.

“It’s grand, isn’t it?” asked Peggy, after a particularly brilliant flash.

“Um—­ah, I don’t just know,” rejoined Jess, “it’s rather too grand if anything.  I——­” Bang!

There was a sharp report, like that of a large cannon.  The air was filled with an eye-blistering blaze of blue fire.  Stunned for an instant, and half blinded, not one of the young folks in the touring car uttered a word.

The storm, too, appeared to be “holding its breath” after that terrific bombardment.

“That struck close by,” declared Roy, the first to recover his speech.

“Oh! oh!” moaned Miss Prescott, “then the next will hit us!”

“Don’t be a goose, Aunt Sally,” comforted Peggy; “don’t you know that lightning never strikes twice in the same place?”

Miss Prescott made no answer.  In fact she had no opportunity to do so.

From close at hand shouts were coming.  Loud, frightened shouts.

“Fire! fire!”

“Gracious! something’s on fire at that farmhouse!” cried Peggy.

“That’s what!” came in excited tones from Roy as he peered out through the rain.

“Look at them running about,” chimed in Jimsy.

“It’s from that haystack!  See the smoke roll up!” cried Bess.

“The lightning must have struck it.  Say, we’d better go and help,” exclaimed Roy anxiously.

“I don’t see that the old man who was so mean to us deserves any help,” murmured Bess, rather angrily.

“Why, Bess, for shame!” reproved Peggy.  “Go on, boys, the rain’s letting up, maybe you can help them.”

“All right, sis.  Come on, Jimsy!”

The boys dived out of the car and set off running at top speed for the scene of the blaze, which was in a haystack back of the main barn of the farmhouse.  Several farm hands, under the direction of the disagreeable old man, whose name was Zenas Hutchings, were running about with buckets of water, which were about as effective as trying to sweep the sea back with a broom, so far as gaining any headway against the flames was concerned.