CHAPTER XVI
CLOUDBURST ON GREYLOCK
SKINNY says that if they would let him run the weather he wouldn't haveit rain daytimes during vacation. All of us Boy Scouts feel that way,too, because, what's the use? The days are made for boys to have fun inand the nights are made to sleep. So, why not have it rain nights whenfolks are sleeping?
Anyhow, it rained that August as we never had seen it rain before andnever want to see it again. It began in the night, all right, just likerain ought to do, but it didn't stop. When day came it seemed to take afresh start and kept going. It rained all day long and we couldn't haveany fun at all. When it came time to go to bed it quit for a spell, butit started up again before morning. It wasn't any drizzle, either. Itcame down in bucketfuls, until I thought the village would be washedaway and that even Bob's Hill would float off.
Along about ten o'clock in the morning it let up, and pretty soon, whoshould come along but Skinny and Bill, barefooted and with old clotheson. They were worried about the cave, and so was I. While it was rainingso hard I thought about it a lot.
You see, our cave is a little below Peck's Falls, on the bank of thebrook. There are two entrances. One goes in from the top on the upperside. You first go down into a hole and then wriggle through an opening,until you come out into the real cave. We don't use that one except whenwe want to escape from the enemy, or something like that.
The one we use is below, right at the edge of the water, and leadsstraight into the real cave. The floor of the cave is even with thewater at the entrance and then slopes back a little out of the wet.
Once a flood filled the cave and nearly drowned us. We should have beendrowned, if Tom Chapin hadn't been with us. He dove down through thehole into the upper cave and then pulled us through after him. Afterthat we built a dam so that it would not happen again. I told all aboutthat once in the doings of the Band. What we were worrying about was thedam's giving way.
Almost always in summer the brook is fine. It pours a clear stream downover the rocks and kind of talks to us and sings, so that we like to bein the cave and listen to it. But sometimes in the spring of the year,when the snow on the mountain is melting and old winter is running awayinto the valley, and sometimes after very hard rains, the water roarsover the falls and then dashes down through the gulch and over the rocksbelow, like some wild beast. At those times, it is a good place to keepaway from, unless you have a dam or a cave that needs looking after.
"Get your hat, Pedro, and come on," said Skinny. "We want to see aboutthe dam. If it washes out the water will fill our cave."
"And bring a shovel," added Bill. "We'd brought one, only your house isso much nearer."
"All right," I told them. "Whistle for Benny, while I'm getting it."
The four of us went up through the orchard and took the road around thehill to the top because the rain had made it too slippery to climbstraight up. We knew by the roaring of the water, long before we came insight, that Peck's Falls were going it for all they were worth.
When we finally, one after another, crept out on the ledge of PulpitRock, in front of the falls, the sight almost scared us. It was great,the way the water came down, fairly jumping from rock to rock, untilwith a final leap and roar, it plunged, all white and foaming, into anangry pool below; then dashed off, with a snarl, through the ravine.
"Gee-whillikens!" said Skinny. "Those are some falls, all right. How'dyou like to go in swimming?"
"It would just about use a fellow up to go through there," I told him."Boost me up so that I can look down at the cave."
"We'll boost Benny," he said. "He isn't so heavy."
The pulpit part reaches up several feet above the narrow ledge like awall, and back of it there is a straight drop, a hundred feet or moredown.
"The cave is all right, I guess," Benny told us, when we had held him upso that he could see over without getting dizzy. "I can see where theupper entrance is, but, say, the brook is fierce."
We crept off from the rock and made our way carefully down the side ofthe ravine to the cave.
It was as Benny had said. The dam had held and was keeping the waterfrom flooding the cave. The upper entrance was all right, although itwas too muddy to use. The water had backed up around the lower entranceand part way into the cave, but beyond it was dry.
The little mountain brook had turned into a torrent, raging along likesome wild beast, and foaming over the rocks below, almost like Peck'sFalls. Just above these smaller falls, a tree, which had been carrieddown into the ravine, stretched across the stream from rock to rock,with its slippery trunk about two feet above the water.
"I guess everything is all right," said Skinny, "but maybe we'd betterfix the dam a little. Gee, but it's getting dark in here."
We worked a few minutes, throwing rocks and dirt against the dam. I hadjust stood off to say that I thought it would hold now, when Skinny gavean awful yell and slipped off from a rock, on which he had beenstanding, into the flood.
I made a grab for him and missed, and in a second he was whirled downthe stream.
It is queer how much thinking one can do in a second. I thought of therocks and of the falls below and of how nobody could go through withoutbeing pounded against the stones.
I was afraid to look, until I heard another yell. Then we yelled, too,for there was Skinny clinging to the tree which stretched across thestream, just above the lower falls, and yelling to beat the band.
The water pulled and tore at his legs, dragging them under the tree andto the very edge of the rock which formed the falls. On his face wassuch a look, when we came near, that I knew he could not hang on muchlonger.
"Hold on tight, Skinny," I called. "We are coming."
It did not take us long to get there, but when we came opposite to wherehe was hanging we could not reach him, and the log was too slippery towalk on.
"Can't you work yourself along the tree?" I asked. "We can't reach, andeven if we could walk out I don't see how we'd ever get back."
He shook his head in despair.
"I can hardly hold on at all," he told us. "I'll have to let go in aminute, if you don't do something. Get the rope. You always want arope."
I hadn't thought of the rope which we have kept in the cave since thetime I told about, when the flood came near drowning us.
Then Bill, being corporal, pulled himself together.
"Run to the cave for the rope," said he, "while I hold him."
Before we could say a word or stop him, he straddled the tree and beganto work his way out, hitching himself along with his hands.
"Run," he yelled again, when he saw us looking with pale faces. "Skinnysaved me and I'll save him, if it takes a leg."
We were halfway to the cave before he had finished speaking. I helpedBenny in through the water, holding him to make sure that he wouldn'tslip, and in two or three seconds he was out again with the rope.
We found Bill clinging to the slippery tree with both legs and holdingSkinny by the collar with both hands. Skinny had a fresh grip and washanging on for all he was worth.
We tied a slip noose in one end of the rope and threw it to Bill.
"You'll have to let go with one hand at a time, Skinny," I heard himsay. "Wait until I get a better grip. Now!"
I saw Skinny let go for a second with his left hand. Bill hung to hiscollar with one hand and with the other put the loop over his head andunder his arm. Then Skinny grabbed hold again and did the same with theother hand.
"Pull her tight, boys. Easy now."
We pulled until the noose tightened under Skinny's shoulders. Then wewaded into the water as far as we dared and pulled steadily on the rope.Skinny scrambled along through the water, digging his finger nails intothe bark, with Bill holding on to his collar as long as he could reach.
By the time we had him out it had grown so dark that we hardly could seeBill, but we knew he was out there because we heard him say "greatsnakes."
"Throw me the rope," he called.
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bsp; He put the noose around his own shoulders, and with our help was soonstanding on the ground.
"I swam her all right," said Skinny, "but I hadn't ought to have doneit. Ma told me not to go swimming to-day."
Just as he said that something seemed to shut us in. The light wasblotted out and we stood there in the dark, scared and wet, wonderingwhat was going to happen.
We groped our way along until we reached the cave and crawled in throughthe water. I didn't like to do it because I knew that if the dam shouldgive way the cave would be flooded. But we had made it stronger and wehad the rope to climb out by at the upper hole, if the worst shouldcome.
The water didn't reach far into the cave, and soon we had a light, forwe always keep candles and matches there.
It didn't seem so scary when we could see, sitting down together on apiece of old carpet which the folks had given us, where we had sat manytimes before.
What happened next, they say, was a cloudburst. Something burst, anyhow.Skinny had just grinned and said that he thought maybe it was going torain, when it started.
And rain! Say, we never had seen it rain before. It came down in chunksand pailfuls. Pretty soon the water began to creep farther into thecave, and we got out the rope and made ready to crawl through into theother part, if it should come much farther.
But the dam held, and there we were, snug and safe, with our candlethrowing dancing shadows, and up against one side of the cave, where wehad hung it long before, our motto:
"Resolved, that the Boys of Bob's Hill are going to make good."
Then we heard a distant roar, different from anything we ever had heardbefore and different from any other noise the storm was making. Itscared us because we couldn't think what it was.
"Gee!" said Skinny. "What's broke loose, now?"
"Great snakes!" I heard Bill say. "I wish I hadn't come."
Benny didn't say anything, but he grabbed my hand and by the way he hungon I knew he was doing a lot of thinking.
That roar seemed to be the end of the storm, for the rain stopped asquickly as it had come. It began to grow light again and somewhere inthe woods we heard a bird singing.
We were glad enough to get out into daylight once more and make our wayback to the road.
"Let's see what it was that roared so," I said. "It isn't going to rainany more and Skinny is nearly dry."
We could see great patches of blue sky and knew that the storm was over.
The roaring had seemed to come from the mountain, so we climbed up theroad and went into a field beyond the woods, from which we usually cansee old Greylock looming up, only looking different, it is so near.
This time we couldn't see him at all. The sky was clear overhead, butclouds still hung about the mountain, shutting him from sight.
Then, as we stood there, the noise came again, only worse this time, andright in front of us. The ground seemed to tremble under our feet andfrom somewhere, back of the cloud which covered the mountainside, came amighty roaring and grinding that was awful.
We stood there, clinging to each other and wondering if the end of theworld had come, when suddenly the cloud lifted and Skinny yelled:
"Look! Look!"
Down the face of Greylock, where before trees had been growing, waterwas pouring over a great, white scar, which reached from top to bottom,nearly to where we stood, and over to the south was a smaller scar.
"Guess what," said Benny. "Greylock is crying. What do you know aboutthat?"
There had been two landslides, the only ones we ever had known to happenon the mountain.
And to this day, as far as you can see Greylock, you will see thosewhite scars of bare rock, stretching down his face, as if some monstrousgiant had clawed him, but, of course, no water after that first time.