and flashes, but Joe was obdurate. He had sailed stormy seas too much to be anything but a cool critic of
summer showers. However, after each unusual flash and report the two stared in the direction of the Willard
house.
"Seems as if I had ought to have stayed there," remarked Sam, trembling, after one great crash.
"What could you have done? That didn't strike no house. Struck out at sea. I'm keepin' an ear out for the fire
alarm," said Joe.
"Have you got it ready?" inquired Sam, mysteriously.
Joe nodded. He flushed slightly. Sam was under orders to keep secret the fact that the poor old sailorman had
the preceding year purchased a fire-extinguisher, with a view to personally protecting the House. "You can
run faster than I can, and you know how to use it," said Joe.
Then another storm came up swiftly. Martha came to the door. "It's another!" cried she.
Joe rose. "Get it for me, Marthy," said he.
Martha brought the fire-extinguisher.
"Guess you and me had better be on the bridge ef another's comin'," said Joe, grimly, to Sam.
The two disappeared down the road in a gray drive of rain. Martha screamed to Joe to take the umbrella, his
best suit would get wet, but he did not hear her. Sam went on a run and Joe hobbled after. They stood on the
Willard veranda and kept watch. Both men were drenched. The waves broke over the sea wall, and the salt
wind drove the rain in the faces of the men.
At last it was over, and they went back to the Dickson house. The odor of fish and beans greeted them. Martha
had continued her dinner preparations. She was not in the least afraid of storms. She, too, only thought of
danger to the grand house, but she had great faith in her husband and the fire-extinguisher, whose unknown
virtues loomed gigantic to her feminine mind.
She made Joe change his best suit, which she hung carefully to dry on the clothes-line, and she gave Sam a
ragged old suit, and hung up his drenched attire also. "You couldn't do much about taking care of things if you
got the rheumatiz," said she.
They ate their dinner in comfort, for the thunder-storm had conquered the heat. Afterward, while Martha
cleared away, the men sat on the porch and went to sleep. Martha herself slept on the old lounge. She dreamed
that she was on the veranda of the Willard house and she awoke to no disillusion. Next day, and all the
following days, for nearly a whole year, she and Joe could be there if they chose. They were in possession; for
so long that dispossession seemed unreality.
That was the happiest summer Joe and Martha had ever know in Barr-by-the-Sea. There were long afternoons,
when Joe had been out and sold his catch; there were wonderful moonlit nights, when they lived on the
outside of the beautiful house and inherited the earth.
The fall was late that year. Long into October, and even during warm days in November, they could assemble
on the veranda and enjoy their wealth. There came a storm in October, however, which increased Joe's fears
concerning the stanchness of the sea wall. He conferred with Sam. Sam was hard to move from his position
that the past proved the future, but finally his grudging assistance was obtained. The two worked hard. They
did what they could, but even then Joe would look at the wall and shake his head.