"
"Gale out o' the no'theast, too!" exclaimed Cap'n Joab, starting for
the door.
The story-teller saw his audience melt away in a minute. He went out
on the porch. Fluttering across the fields and sand lots from all
directions were the neighbors--both men and women. The possibility of
a wreck--the great tragedy of long-shore existence--would bring
everybody not bed-ridden to the sands.
He saw Betty Gallup in high boots, her pea-coat buttoned tightly across
her flat bosom, her man's hat pulled down over her ears, already
halfway to the shore. From the cottage on the bluffs above The Beaches
the summer visitors were trailing down. Below Bozewell's bungalow the
motion picture company were running excitedly about.
"Like sandpipers," muttered the storekeeper. "Crazy critters. Wonder
where that schooner is."
He hesitated to leave the premises. Cap'n Abe had never been known to
follow the crowd to the beach when an endangered craft was in the
offing. Indeed, he never looked in the direction of the sea if he
could help it when a storm lashed its surface and piled the breakers
high upon the strand.
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