As for the harvest, there won't be any harvest for the
next two years! Oh, yes, things are dry enough."
One imagines Providence bursting into tears. "But you suggested
yourself a little fine weather."
"I know I did," answers the Spirit. "I didn't suggest a six months'
drought with the thermometer at a hundred and twenty in the shade.
Doesn't seem to me that you've got any sense at all."
"I do wish this job had been given to someone else," says Providence.
"Yes, and you are not the only one to wish it," retorts the Spirit
unfeelingly.
"I do my best," urges Providence, wiping her eyes with her wings. "I
am not fitted for it."
"A truer word you never uttered," retorts the Spirit.
"I try--nobody could try harder," wails Providence. "Everything I do
seems to be wrong."
"What you want," says the Spirit, "is less enthusiasm and a little
commonsense in place of it. You get excited, and then you lose your
head. When you do send rain, ten to one you send it when it isn't
wanted. You keep back your sunshine--just as a duffer at whist keeps
back his trumps--until it is no good, and then you deal it out all at
once."
"I'll try again," said Providence. "I'll try quite hard this time."
"You've been trying again," retorts the Spirit unsympathetically,
"ever since I have known you. It is not that you do not try. It is
that you have not got the hang of things. Why don't you get yourself
an almanack?"
The Wandering Spirit takes his leave.
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