render the air still more oppressive and stifling, and all nature seemed to partake of the universal languor; not a breath of air stirred the foliage of the trees, and the waters of the river assumed a dull motionless look, in keeping with the other elements.  “This day does beat all,” said the Widow Green as she came in, flushed and heated from the dairy room.  “I thought,” replied my aunt, “I could bear either heat or cold as well as most people, but this day is too much for me.  I cannot work, and I would advise you to give over too.”  “I remember a summer like this thirty years ago,” said Grandma, “the same heat continued for nine weeks, and then we had a most terrible storm, and after that we had no more to say very warm weather the rest of the season; and I am pretty sure there is a tempest brooding in the air to-day, by the dull heavy feeling about my head, which I always experience before a thunder-storm.”

The heat had become so intense by noon that Uncle Nathan and his hired men did not attempt to go back to the fields after dinner, but sat listlessly in the coolest part of the house; they made some attempt to interest each other in conversation, but even talking was an exertion, and they finally relapsed into silence, and, leaning back in his chair, Uncle Nathan’s loud breathing soon indicated that in his case the heat as well as all other troubles were for the present forgotten in sleep.  A change came over the heavens with the approach of evening, a breeze sprung up, scattering the misty haze which had filled the air during the day, and disclosing a pile of dark clouds in the western sky, which seemed to gather blackness as they rose.  “It’s my opinion,” said Grandma, who had carefully observed the weather during the day, “that the storm will burst about sunset,” and true enough it did burst with a violence before unknown in that vicinity.  I had gone to the far-off pasture to drive home the cows at the usual time for milking.  The huge pile of clouds, which for hours had lain motionless in the west, now rose rapidly toward the zenith, and hung like a funeral pall directly over our heads.  The tempest burst in all its fury before I reached home, clouds of dust filled the air, which almost blinded me, and almost each moment was to be heard the crash of falling trees in the distant forest.  The thunder, which at first murmured faintly, increased as the clouds advanced upward, till by the time I reached home it was indeed terrific.  They were all truly glad when I burst suddenly into the house drenched with rain, and completely exhausted.  The cows remained unmilked for that night, a thing which Aunt Lucinda said had never happened before since her recollection.  Flash after flash of vivid lightning filled the otherwise darkened air, succeeded by the deep heavy roll of the thunder.  It was noticed by those who witnessed this storm, that the lightning had that peculiar bluish light which is sometimes, but not often, observed during a violent summer tempest.