CHAPTER VII
THE STORM
That storm was always known as "The Storm" by everyone who was at theWeek-End Camp on that night in August. Greendale had been singularlyfree from severe storms that season and the Carters had had nodifficulty up to that time in keeping dry. They had had rain in plentybut never great downpours and their mountain had escaped the lightningthat on several occasions had played havoc not many miles from them.
The day had been exceptionally warm but very clear. The full moon hadtaken the place of the sun when night came on and so brilliant was theglow from that heavenly orb, one could almost fancy heat was reflectedas well as light. The great black cloud that came rolling over themountain was as much an astonishment to the dancers in the pavilion asit was to the moon herself. They refused to recognize the fact that astorm was coming up and the moon also held her own for some time afterthe downpour was upon them. She kept peeping out through rifts in theclouds and once when the storm was at its fiercest she sailed clear ofall clouds for a few moments, and then it was that the rarest of allbeauties in Nature was beheld by the damp and huddled-up crowd ofweek-enders: a lunar rainbow.
It stretched across the valley, a perfect arc with the colors as clearlydefined as a solar bow but infinitely more delicate than any rainbowever beheld before.
There was no such thing as keeping dry. When Lewis Somerville and BillTinsley built the pavilion, they had kept exactly to the architect'splans, drawn so carefully by Robert Carter's assistant, Mr. Lane. Theroof projected so far on every side that they had remarked at the timethat nothing short of horizontal rain could find its way under thatroof. Well, this rain was horizontal and it came in first one directionand then another until every bit of floor space was flooded. The thundersounded like stage thunder made by rolling barrels of bricks downinclined planes and helped out with the bass drum. Great clouds restedon the mountain tops and a wind, that seemed demoniacal in the tricks itplayed, bent over great forest trees as though they were saplings andthen let them snap back into place with a deafening crack.
"Save the Victrola," whispered Tillie to Bill. "I want to dance with youonce before you go off, and water will ruin it."
That was enough for the devoted Bill. He took off his coat and wrappedit tenderly over the top of the Victrola, which was still playing a gaydance tune as no one had had the presence of mind to stop it. Then hemade a dash for the kitchen just as a river of water was descending andin a twinkling was back bearing in his arms a great tin tub. This heplaced over the top of the precious music-maker. He felt very tendertoward Tillie just then for although her new dress was being ruined,still her first thought had been for the Victrola so she could dancewith him.
The storm having come up so suddenly found the crowd totally unprepared.Tent flys had been left up and the windows and door of the cabin, whereMrs. Carter was installed, were wide open for the four winds of heavento blow through. Sad havoc they played with the dainty finery that Mrs.Carter and Susan had left spread out on the bed. The wonderful hat,brought as a present for Douglas, was picked up the next morning halfway down the mountain; at least the ruin was supposed to be that hat butit was never quite identified as it had lost all semblance to a hat.
Lewis, after hearing the ultimatum from Douglas, as I have said, madehis solitary way to his tent where he threw himself on his cot to fightit out with his disappointed self. A dash of rain on his tent arousedhim and then a mighty gust of wind simply picked up the tent and waftedit away like thistledown.
"Well, of all----" but Lewis never finished of all the what, but in atwinkling he had rolled up the bed clothes belonging to himself and histent mates, and then rushing to the neighboring tents that were stillwithstanding the raging hurricane he rolled up blankets found there andpiled cots on top of the bundles.
It was a real fight, strong man that he was, to make his way to thepavilion. Trees were bending before the wind and he found the only wayto locomote was to crawl.
"Just suppose the pavilion doesn't hold!" was ringing in his mind; butthe young men "had builded better than they knew." It did hold althoughthe roof was straining at the rafters and Lewis and Bill feared everymoment it might rise up and float off as their tent had done.
Lewis came under cover wetter than he would have been had he been inswimming, he declared. Swimming just soaks the water in but the rainhad beat it in and hammered it down. The wind was still driving the rainin horizontal sheets and the pavilion was getting damper and damper. Theweek-enders were a very forlorn looking crowd and no doubt the majorityof them were far from blessing the day that had brought them to the campin Albemarle. They ran from corner to corner trying to get out of thesearching flood.
"I know they are blaming it on us!" cried Nan to Mr. Tucker.
"Who is blaming it on you?" laughed Page Allison. "Why, honey, it may bedoing worse things in other places. We should be thankful we are on amountain top instead of in a valley." Then she drew Mr. Tucker aside andwhispered to him: "See here, Zebedee, don't you think it is up to ussomehow to relieve this situation? If we get giddy and act as though itwere a privilege to be wet to the skin, don't you think we might stir upthese people and make a lark of this storm instead of a calamity? Youremember you told me once that you and Miss Jinny Cox saved the day fora picnic at Monticello when a deluge hit you there?"
Zebedee was the Tucker Twins' pet name for their father, and PageAllison, their best friend, was also privileged to use the name for thateternally youthful gentleman.
"I've been thinking we must do something, but the lightning is so severethat somehow I think I must wait."
"You are like Mammy Susan who says: 'Whin the Almighty is a-doing hiswuck ain't the time fur a po' ole nigger ter be a-doin' hern.'"
"Exactly! But it is letting up a bit now, that is, the lightning is, butthe rain is even more terrific."
A great crash of thunder, coming simultaneously with a flash oflightning that cracked like a whip, put a stop to conversation, andPage, in spite of her bravery, for she was not the least afraid ofstorms as a rule--clung to Mr. Tucker. Everybody was clinging toeverybody else and in the stress of the moment no one was choosy aboutthe person to cling to. Bill cursed his stars that Tillie was hanging onto Skeeter, as pale as a little ghost, when she might just as well behanging on to him, while he, in turn, was supporting a strange person hehad never even met.
"That hit close to us!" exclaimed someone.
"I believe it hit me!" screamed a girl.
"Where are Susan and Oscar?" cried Douglas. "They will be scared todeath."
"When I went down in the kitchen after the tub for the Victrola, Oscarwas under the table and Susan was trying to get in the fireless cooker,head first," volunteered Bill. "The kitchen is really the dryest placeon the mountain, I fancy."
"You forget the shower bath," suggested Helen. "Turn it on full forceand it would still be a thousand times dryer than any place here."
"I tell you what let's do!" spoke Dum Tucker with an inspiration thatall regretted had not come sooner. "Let's climb up and sit on therafters!"
Suiting the action to the word, she lightly ascended the trunk of thehuge tulip poplar tree that had been left in the center of the pavilionas a support to the roof. The branches had been sawed off, leavingenough projecting to serve as hat racks for the camp. These made anadmirable winding stair which an athletic girl like Dum Tucker madenothing of climbing.
"Splendid!" and Dee Tucker followed her twin. In short order many of themore venturesome members of the party were perched on the rafters wherethey defied the rain to reach them. Even poor Mrs. Carter, her prettylace dress, if not absolutely ruined, at least with all of its firstfreshness gone, was persuaded to come up, too, and there she sattrembling and miserable.
"Come on up, Page!" shouted Dee to her chum.
"I'll be there soon," but Page had an idea that she meant first topropose to Douglas.
Poor Douglas, this was a fitting ending to a day of worry and concern.She felt like one
<
br /> "Whom unmerciful disaster Followed fast and followed faster."
Of course country folk are always made to feel in some intangible waythat they are responsible for the weather when the weather happens to bebad and city folk are visiting them. Douglas thought she had enough notto bear the weight of the storm, but somehow she felt that that, too,was added to her burden.
"I know exactly what you are thinking," said Page, coming up and puttingher wet arm around Douglas' wet waist. "I have lived in the country allmy life and whenever we have a big storm at Bracken or unseasonableweather of any sort, we are always held personally responsible for it bya certain type of visitors. You think this is going to harm your campand keep people from coming, don't you?"
"Why, how did you know?"
"A little bird told me--a stormy petrel. Now I tell you what we must do:we must whoop things up until all of these week-enders will think thatthe storm was about the most interesting thing that ever happened atCamp Carter and they will come again hoping for a repetition of theexperience."
"Oh, Page! How can we?" and Douglas smiled in spite of herself.
"Well, let's call a council and appoint a committee on ways and means."
Mr. Tucker was first on the list, then Helen and Dr. Wright, BillTinsley and Lewis Somerville. Nan was so busy looking at the beauties ofNature that she had to be called three times before she answered.
"Come on, Miss Nan!" begged Mr. Tucker. "Your wise little head is wantedon this committee."
"Only look at that bank of clouds as the lightning strikes on the edgeof it! It looks like the portals of heaven."
"Yes, and it came mighty near being that same thing," muttered Mr.Tucker.
The storm was really passing. Flashes of lightning and peals of thundergrew farther and farther apart. The rain gave one big last dash andstopped as suddenly as it had begun and then the moon asserted herselfonce more.
Every member of the hastily called council had some suggestion to makeand every suggestion was eagerly taken by the committee on ways andmeans, that committee being composed of the entire council.
Page said hot coffee for the entire camp must be made immediately andshe would do the making. Dr. Wright said a fire would be a pretty goodthing if it could be managed, and Bill Tinsley remembered some charcoalbraziers that Susan used for ironing and a box of charcoal in the cornerof the kitchen. Lewis went to gather up all the blankets in the camp andthose that were damp were draped along the rafters by the climbers. Soonthe brazier had a glow of coals that sent up heat to the rafters, andBill also put into use the great iron pot that had hung over the campfire just for picturesqueness. It had never had anything in it butwater, all the cooking being done on kerosene stoves and in a firelesscooker. This made an excellent brazier and the coals were kept red hotwith the help of the automobile tire pump in lieu of bellows. Helen hadambition for a welsh rarebit and started in with chafing dishes. Thiscalled into requisition more workers and all of the camp was soon busycutting up cheese and toasting bread and crackers.
The Victrola was relieved of its tub and a ragtime record put on thatmade all of the workers step lively, which did much toward startingtheir circulation and warming them up generally. The Victrola ever afterthat was called Diogenes, after a certain wise man who lived in a tub.
Everybody danced at his work and everybody was laughing and happy. Themoonlight was so dazzling in its brilliancy that it was difficult torealize that not ten minutes before the biggest storm Greendale had everknown had been making even the strong men tremble. Nan seemed to be theonly person who had not been afraid. Even those who had never beforeminded a storm had been cowed by this one.
Page declared she had always liked storms before; even when a big gumtree on the lawn at Bracken had been struck before her very eyes she hadnot been afraid, but this time she was scared to death.
Dum said it seemed to be such a personal storm somehow and each flashseemed to mean her. "I felt my naked soul was exposed to my Maker," shesaid, as she gave her beloved father a hug. "I have got all kinds ofthings to 'fess to you, Zebedee, things that I never thought made anydifference before," she whispered.
"Why, Dumdeedledums! What on earth?"
"Only this evening I smoked a cigarette, although I know you hate it--Iowe a little bill for soda water at Miller's, although I know you don'twant me to charge things--there are other things but I can't think ofthem just now. Suppose--only suppose that I had winked out withouttelling you or worse than that, suppose you had----" but Dum couldn'tfinish for the big tears that rolled out of her eyes and whichTucker-like she made no attempt to conceal. Zebedee lent her hishandkerchief and then had to wipe his own eyes, too.
"That is all right, honey, but don't do it any more. And now you turn inand help these Carter girls and Page jolly up this crowd. Page is makingcoffee and I am going with Somerville to right the tents and take stockof the damage done by the storm."
When Page had first entered the kitchen she found the two negroes bentover in abject woe. Oscar was praying while Susan moaned and groanedwith occasional ejaculations like a Greek chorus in a tragedy ofEuripides.
"Oh my Gawd, let the deep waters pass over me and let me come out whiterthan the snow and sweeter than the honey in the honey comb--let me beputrified by fire and let the rollin' thunder's shock pass me by,leavin' me stand steadfast, a pillar of smoke by day and a pillar offire by night like unto a lily of the valley, a bright an' mawnin' starthat casts its beams on the jest an' the onjest----"
"Yes, my Gawd!" wailed the chorus. "An' the jest an' the onjest shalllie down together like the lion an' the lamb in that great an' mightyday an' who Gawd has united let no man pull acinder."
"Yes! Yes! In that day when the Rock of Ages shall smite the Shibbolethand the Urum an' Thurum may be delivered not--remember thou thy servantOscar----"
"Yes! Yes, Lord! an' thy handy maiden Susan!"
Page entered and put a stop to the impassioned appeal by asking for thecoffee pot, while Bill Tinsley bore off the big brazier full ofcharcoal.
"The storm is over, I think," said Page, with difficulty restraining hersmiles. "It was very terrible indeed."
"Turrible ain't no word for it; an' now you say the white folks wants toeat agin? Lord love us if ev'thing don't make these here week-endersemptier an' emptier. Feedin' of them is like pourin' water down a rathole."
"Well, you see, uncle, they all of them got so wet that it is wise togive them something hot to drink, and then, too, we want them to forgetthe terrible storm and think of the camp only with pleasure. You seethey might not come back again."
"Forget it! forget it! You can't lose these here folks. They'd ride allthe way from Richmond jes' to fill theyselves up, if for no otherreason. They is the empties' lot I ever come acrost."
Dee Tucker followed Page to the kitchen to see if she could be of anyassistance in making the coffee. She felt keenly sorry for the Carterson account of this storm. Not being connected with them in any way,the grumblers had not hesitated to criticize the whole thing in Dee'spresence when they got wet and scared. Dee had done all in her power tosoften their judgment, but there were several who did not hesitate toblame the Carter girls because of their wetting. Nothing is so catchingas criticism and it spreads like wildfire with the genus boarder. Shetold Page of her fears.
"We'll have to put a stop to it. You get Tillie Wingo and you and shesoft soap the men who are grouching, and then get Zebedee to go afterthe females. He can make them believe they only dreamed it stormed."