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An Officer of the Government, with a great outfit of mule-waggons loaded
with balloons, kites, dynamite bombs, and electrical apparatus, halted in
the midst of a desert, where there had been no rain for ten years, and
set up a camp. After several months of preparation and an expenditure of
a million dollars all was in readiness, and a series of tremendous
explosions occurred on the earth and in the sky. This was followed by a
great down-pour of rain, which washed the unfortunate Officer of the
Government and the outfit off the face of creation and affected the
agricultural heart with joy too deep for utterance. A Newspaper Reporter
who had just arrived escaped by climbing a hill near by, and there he
found the Sole Survivor of the expedition–a mule-driver–down on his
knees behind a mesquite bush, praying with extreme fervour.

“Oh, you can’t stop it that way,” said the Reporter.

“My fellow-traveller to the bar of God,” replied the Sole Survivor,
looking up over his shoulder, “your understanding is in darkness. I am
not stopping this great blessing; under Providence, I am bringing it.”

“That is a pretty good joke,” said the Reporter, laughing as well as he
could in the strangling rain–“a mule driver’s prayer answered!”

“Child of levity and scoffing,” replied the other; “you err again, misled
by these humble habiliments. I am the Rev. Ezekiel Thrifft, a minister
of the gospel, now in the service of the great manufacturing firm of
Skinn & Sheer. They make balloons, kites, dynamite bombs, and electrical
apparatus.”