A little roof that folds up small as a bundle of kindling, and unfolds when the sky opens, and a man carries it over his own head all the day long. I have stood in the field through a whole day's rain, soaked to the marrow, my back a rod of iron, and thanked the Lord it was rain and not the frost that kills the wheat. No man ever thought to hand me a roof for my walking.
The good folk here spread these over themselves the moment a cloud spits, as though a little wet were a thing to be feared, as though their skin would run off them like tallow. Black wings, they have, like a crow's, or like the wings of a thing I will not name near the church.
And yet. When the wind rises, the little roof turns itself inside out and fights the man's own hand, and I have seen a fellow wrestle it in the street, cursing, the ribs bent, and I thought: there is the truth of it. Even a small mercy from Heaven comes with its own labor.
A man may keep the rain off his crown. He cannot keep it off his grave.