"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."
"You were in a more comfortable place, I hope," observed Galusha.
"Um--we-ell, that's accordin' to what you call comf'table.
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