292 FIVE ACRES TOO MUCH. 



pleted and then it rained. I had prepared as well 

 as I could to meet this contingency, being the pos 

 sessor of a large amount of canvas, which once corf- 

 stituted the racing sails of a yacht that I owned in my 

 younger days, and I had spread this over the yawn 

 ing gulf as well as I could. But it did not answer ; 

 perhaps there was not peak enough, or the duck was 

 worn thin by age ; certain it w r as that it leaked, and 

 leaked badly, not in mere drops, but in rivulets, that 

 first covered the upper floor, and then worked their 

 way down through the lower ceilings, and dripped 

 on the furniture, and discolored the walls, and loos 

 ened the plaster. 



Moreover, the rain always came at the worst times 

 and in the most disagreeable ways. I would go calm 

 ly to bed, leaving every thing apparently serene, not 

 a cloud in the sky, the stars shining brightly, and the 

 wind due west, and be waked up at midnight by the 

 beating of the storm, and the trickle of the water as 

 it came down through one corner, its favorite spot, in 

 my room. Then the wind would blow, and work un 

 der the canvas, and tug at the ends, until it succeed 

 ed in rolling it up, so that it could expose what was 

 beneath. 



And then, of course, at the precise moment when 

 a dozen more days work would have made me safe 



