Zacheus regarded him calmly. “Commenced about ten last night,” he observed. “Been breezin' on steady ever since. Be quite consider'ble gale if it keeps up.”
Mr. Bangs looked at him with amazement.
“If it keeps up!” he repeated. “Isn't it a gale now?”
Zach shook his head.
“Not a reg'lar gale, 'tain't,” he said. “Alongside of some gales I've seen this one ain't nothin' but a tops'l breeze. Do you remember the storm the night the Portland was lost, Martha?”
Miss Phipps, who had come in from the kitchen with a can of coffee in her hand, shuddered.
“Indeed I do, Zacheus,” she said; “don't remind me of it.”
“Why, dear me, was it worse than this one?” asked Galusha.
Martha smiled. “It blew the roof off the barn here,” she said, “and blew down both chimneys on the house and both over at Cap'n Jeth's. So far as that goes we had plenty of company, for there were nineteen chimneys down along the main road in Wellmouth. And trees—mercy! how the poor trees suffered! East Wellmouth lost thirty-two big silver-leafs and the only two elms it had. Set out over a hundred years ago, those elms were.”
“Spray from the breakers flew clear over the top of the bank here,” said Zach. “That's some h'ist for spray, hundred and odd feet. I wan't here to see it, myself, but Cap'n Jeth told me.”