g clouds rolled in from the sea, as if the storm
had planted batteries there and the smoke from the cannonade was
thickening. At night Charlie, passing a window in his chamber, heard the
rain drumming on the panes. He had gone to his warm nest and been there
only two minutes, when he said to himself, as he gaped, "If it would only
rain so hard that I wouldn't have to go to school to-mor--" Here the angel
of sleep came along, and, putting his hand on the eyes of a tired boy,
closed them and drowned in sweet oblivion all his school anxieties. It
rained through the night. It rained all the next day. The tide, too, was
unusually high. It rolled over the wharves, swept up the shipyards, and
even ventured into the yard back of Silas Trefethen's store, floating away
a hencoop with its squawking tenants.

"It beats all!" said Simes Badger. "The oldest person round here never saw
such a tide."

The Up-the-Ladder Club did the tide the honor of making it a call in a
body, and from the rear of Silas Trefethen's store watched the swollen
current beyond the yard.

"Let's go down to the beach and see the waves to-morrow. It's Saturday,
you know, and the waves pile up tremendous in a storm. Who's for it!"
inquired Sid Waters. There was not a White Shield present who was
unwilling to go. Some of them, however, went sooner than they expected.

Toward the morning of the next day, Will Somers was aroused by the ringing
of a bell. He opened his ears, opened his eyes, and then he sprang out of
bed.

"Fire!" he said. "Fire!"

He rushed to a window, threw it up, and put his head out into the black
storm, through which echoed the notes of the bell of old St. John's. They
made such an impression it seemed as if they must be living things out in
the darkness walking. So strange, so unreal was this, it was a relief to
hear the approaching footsteps of somebody who was actually "flesh and
blood."

"Where's the fire?" asked Will.

"Fire!" said the man, walking leisurely along. "I should think any booby
might know this is not the night for a fire, when things are so wet; but
it is the night for a wreck, and the feller pullin' that bell tells me
there is one off Gull's P'int."

"Is it? I am going, then, and I should think any one but a booby would be
going in that direction," retorted Will, noticing that the man was not
moving toward the quarter where the wreck was. The stranger muttered
something about knowing his own business best, while