the front porch. The other children (there are six) usually slept in the body of the house.
Soon after we retired a fresh wind blew up and relieved the humidity of the day, but it was only pleasant and did not become alarming in bluster or velocity until the early morning. I did not know just what time that was, but as the rain began to blow in through the screen, I moved my bed from the porch into the living room, and turned on the light to guide me to the back room to see how the children were faring. The windows were open, but at that time the rain had not begun to beat through, and I returned to the living room and went back to bed. It was not to sleep, however. The wind and the rain increased in intensity and in a short time I got up again. By this time the wind was whipping the awnings in a lively fashion and their metal frames were creaking and shrieking in a most alarming medley, which made sleep quite impossible. Again I punched on the light, but had hardly done so when the bulbs faded out in a dull red glow, denoting that the current had failed.
My wife appeared and asked if I had any matches, and told me I would find candles in the kitchen cabinet.
Matches! With all my premonition of the storm I had not thought of matches. But if I am improvident my nature I may lay reasonable claim to a fairly good memory. I remembered that I had seen a packet containing three paper stemmed matches on a chiffonier. I groped in the dense darkness and found them. Yes, there were but three, and there had been several days of humid weather. What if the matches would not ignite? Fortunately the first match was successful, and then I misplaced the others and did not find them until after the storm.
After making a light I distinguished here and there through the night and blinding rain dim splotches of light which indicated that my neighbors had provided themselves with the primitive candle, with which our forefathers were familiar. Despite the progress of the age it seems inevitable that we must resort in emergency to primitive conveniences. Just across the street such a flicker was discernible, and I knew that Harry Goldstein, my friend of many years, was keeping a lonely vigil against the storm, for Harry is a bachelor and lives alone in a garage apartment which he had built only a few months ago. His domicile was a sad wreck, but he escaped unhurt, and he told me the next day that he had expected every minute to feel the house give way. I told him I thought of him during the night, and would have asked him to share our anxiety if this had
