Storms rarely occur, I remember but two violent ones in which the gentle south wind seemed to forget its nature and became a raging gale.
The first occurred when I was a small child. The wind had been blowing for some time, gradually increasing in the evening, and as night advanced becoming heavier every hour. Large stones were taken up from the high bank on the bay and piled on the roof with limbs broken from tough fir trees. Thousands of giant trees fell crashing and groaning to the ground, like a continuous cannonade; the noise was terrific and we feared for our lives.
At midnight, not daring to leave the house, and yet fearing that it might be overthrown, we knelt and commended ourselves to Him who rules the storm.
About one o’clock the storm abated and calmly and safely we lay down to sleep.
The morning broke still and clear, but many a proud monarch of the forest lay prone upon the ground.
Electric storms were very infrequent; if there came a few claps of thunder the children exclaimed, “O mother, hear the thunder storm!”
“Well, children, that isn’t much of a thunder storm; you just ought to hear the thunder in Illinois, and the lighting was a continual blaze.”
Our mother complained that we were scarcely enough afraid of snakes; as there are no deadly reptiles on Puget Sound, we thrust our hands into the densest foliage or searched the thick grass without dread of a lurking enemy.
The common garter snake, a short, thick snake, whose track across the dusty roads I have seen, a long lead-colored snake and a small brown one, comprise the list known to us.
Walking along a narrow trail one summer day, singing as I went, the song was abruptly broken, I sprang to one side with remarkable agility, a long, wiggling thing “swished” through the grass in an opposite direction. Calling for help, I armed myself with a club, and with my support, boldly advanced to seek out the serpent. When discovered we belabored it so earnestly that its head was well-nigh severed from its body.