NONSUCH 



This is one of a hundred silly games of personal 

 weather. Besides the sheer joy of inventing and 

 playing them at shaving time and other useless mo- 

 ments, they have many valuable by-products, like 

 sending you to Jeans and Bragg and Eddington to 

 find out why drops are and exactly where they go. 

 The games are also a boon to anxious friends, pro- 

 viding food for speculation as to when I will prob- 

 ably become violent and whether I should not be 

 confined at once. 



Now and then a section of weather so detaches 

 itself from that preceding and following, that it 

 stands forever apart. Such was our first hurricane 

 on Nonsuch. Its prelude was unusual but long- 

 drawn-out, and it gave no hint of what was coming. 



For ten days the weather had been perfect to the 

 eye, comfortable to the skin, and ideal for my pre- 

 cious trawling operations; the sea calm, with fre- 

 quent slicks, the gentle breeze, drifting in from the 

 south, warm and delightful. No sargassum had 

 come in, the weed fields of ocean were motionless, 

 there was no sound among the cedars — their bent 

 trunks had a long, long rest. After the tenth day 

 of unusual dead calm, the sea rose, quite without 

 visible reason. There was a breeze — zephyr would 

 be the better name — which might raise ripples on a 

 pond, yet the sea was troubled as in a stiff wind. 

 For once I witnessed the effects of weather without 

 the cause. With the disturbance came more brilliant 

 colors than I have ever seen in these colorful waters. 

 Sometimes, near Castle Island, a dozen diverse 



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