Miss Sue, called to Suz Montevedo's on her charitable mission, had depended upon Pearl to take the lead in the decoration of the chapel for the next day's celebration. Unexpected events, however, barred Pearl from going to the rendezvous at the hour appointed. Indeed, a greater storm was destined to rage inside the Petty house on this day than swept the Cape Cod coast. There seemed to be a lull in the gale about mid-forenoon, and Cap'n Jonah, who did not read much and had small means of self entertainment, bundled up in oils and southwester and ventured forth, bound shoreward. When he faced the full force of the gale on the open highway he was really tempted to return. "Whatever!" he muttered. "This ain't fittin' for a dog to be out in. If it keeps up this way, it's goin' to spile all the fun to-morrow." Although he observed nobody on the road, he found when he stumbled up the steps of the store and lifted the doorlatch that Cap'n Abe was not left even on this blusterous day without his company of habitual loungers. "Hi-mighty!" cried the storekeeper, as Cap'n Jonah staggered in and put his back against the door which had been all but torn from his grasp by the wind. "Hi-mighty, Cap'n Hand! can't you find no better weather to bring 'long with you when you come visiting? "Hear that sleet slammin' on the clapboards, will you?" he proceeded, as Cap'n Joab and Washy Gallup made room for the newcomer at the stove. "Must sound like the gale Peleg Fosdick, of the _Sarah Truesdale_, weathered the time he run under the lee of the sand cliffs at Barrows Neck. "Peleg, they say, although he was the skipper of a haddocker for years an' years, was always afraid of a capful of wind. A summer squall looked as big to him as a hurricane; and if he had ever got into a reg'lar no'theast snorter like this one, I reckon he'd died o' heart failure. "If it come on to blow and he could, he'd up hooks an' run for shelter, no matter where, till he could see the end o' bad weather. And they do tell about his holdin' an umbrella over himself in a thunder shower when he was at the _Sarah Truesdale's_ wheel," and the storekeeper broke into a mellow chuckle and tucked his silver-bowed spectacles higher on his bald brow. "Ord'narily he went below when it rained or blew. He was jest as techy about gettin' wet as a cat. Come one time they tell of, and a brisk gale come up while the _Sarah Truesdale_ was on the Dogfish Bank. Sun goin' down as pretty as you could wish; but jest the same, Cap'n Peleg Fosdick seen bad weather comin' in his mind's eye. "So they run for it, he an' his mate an' the boy. Barrows Neck, where is piled all the loose sand that was left over after they made the Desert of Sairah, offered the nearest shelter. Peleg run in there and droppd his mudhook just as a hand's breath of cloud spilt a shower on him. It was near night and he dove below and didn't calc'late to go aloft again while it rained.