"Don't you know that this
house--this boat, I mean, is a wreck?"
"Yes, sma'am--sir, I mean--I know it, and I suppose we shall soon
be at the mercy of the waves."
"Well, then, go as quickly as you can. What are you putting in
that basket?"
"Food," she said. "We may need it."
I took her by the shoulder and hurried her on deck, over the
bulwark, down the gang-plank, and so on to the place where I had
left Euphemia.
I found the dear girl there, quiet and collected, all up in a
little bunch, to shield herself from the wind. I wasted no time,
but hurried the two women over to the house of our milk-merchant.
There, with some difficulty, I roused the good woman, and after
seeing Euphemia and Pomona safely in the house, I left them to tell
the tale, and ran back to the boat.
The boarder was working like a Trojan. He had already a pile of
our furniture on the beach.
I set about helping him, and for an hour we labored at this hasty
and toilsome moving. It was indeed a toilsome business. The
floors were shelving, the stairs leaned over sideways, ever so far,
and the gang-plank was desperately short and steep.
Still, we saved quite a number of household articles. Some things
we broke and some we forgot, and some things were too big to move
in this way; but we did very well, considering the circumstances.
The wind roared, the tide rose, and the boat groaned and creaked.
We were in the kitchen, trying to take the stove apart (the boarder
was sure we could carry it up, if we could get the pipe out and the
legs and doors off), when we heard a crash.
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