This student drawing from my American Lit class is in response to the beginning of chapter 14 of Kelton’s The Time It Never Rained: “Time was when an inch of rain would have brought fresh life, a greening to the land. But there had been grass then, a spongy turf to soak up an hold the moisture, and live roots to draw sustenance from it. Now the bare ground had nothing to soften the impact of the rain, to catch and drink up the water. The first burst of precipitation wold pack and seal the topsoil. The falling rain drops would strike hard and splash upward, brown with mud.”
