Palm leaves, torn from the trees, went flying off, high overhead, in somersaulting circles. Eddies of golden sand swirled the length of the shore. The wind, heavy with salt spray, wailed louder and louder.
Then it grew darker than midnight. Peterkin could see nothing now. He knelt among the snapping, creaking vines and buried his face against the beaten-down flowers.
The rain began. A few warm, pattering drops at first—then a sudden heavy downpour, streaming and cold. The vines were floating with drooping leaves upon a lake of rain, and the little flowers disappeared completely. The beach below was guttered with brown water.
Gradually then the rain began to lessen. The clouds turned a lighter gray, until they broke apart in a long, uneven rift and showed a gap of blue. The sunshine came through this gap in a softly beaming shaft. High against the dark hung a curving rainbow, like an arch of jewels.
The rainbow faded, the sunshine grew stronger and more golden, the last wisps of cloud sank away in the blue of the sky. The sea was calm now and blue. Nothing seemed to be moving upon it excepting the tiny darts of gleaming sunbeams. All was peace again....
Only—something—far out at sea—Oh! what was it? Something round and yellow! A tiny yellow spot, sailing out, out toward the horizon!
Peterkin looked down at the shore, his heart jumping into his throat. Yes, alas! His Pumperkin was gone! His pumpkin house had been swept away by the storm—swept out to sea!
Yes, his house, his boat, his darling Pumperkin was sailing away from him—was lost and gone! Ah, what would his fate be now?
------------------------------------------------------------------------
PETERKIN was hungrier than ever. He had lost his faithful pumpkin, too! Oh, what could he do? He pondered a long while. He could try to cook some more flowers and vines on his stove. But, no ... he remembered what had happened the last time he tried. And, it seemed, there wasn’t anything else to eat on all the shore.
He must escape, then. He must flee this lonely beach. He must wander away to somewhere ... he didn’t know where—just somewhere else.
But how? For he had no Pumperkin now. His yellow house of a boat had been swept off on the waves, out beyond the horizon. At last, as he stood in deep thought, a merry idea came popping into his head. Indeed, it was an idea so full of mad adventure that, when it came to him, he had to burst out laughing and clapped his hands in glee. For he remembered what a comical thing had happened at the stove an hour before.