It was the morning after the disaster. The sun rose red and threatening,
circled with a ring of fiery mist. People encamped upon the hill-side
greeted each other as on the morn of resurrection. For many were found
among the living who were being mourned as dead. Mothers hugged their
children with tearful joy, thanking God that they had been spared; and
husbands who had heard through the night the agonized cries of their
drowning wives, finding them at dawn safe and sound, felt as if they had
recovered them from the very gates of death. When all were counted, it
was ascertained that but very few of the villagers had been overtaken by
the flood. The timely warning had enabled all to save themselves, except
some who in their eagerness to rescue their goods had lingered too long.
Impoverished most of them were by the loss of their houses and cattle.
The calamity was indeed overwhelming. But when they considered how much
greater the disaster would have been if the flood had come upon them
unheralded, they felt that they had cause for gratitude in the midst of
their sorrow. And who was it that brought the tidings that snatched them
from the jaws of death? Well, nobody knew. He rode too fast. And each
was too much startled by the message to take note of the messenger. But
who could he possibly have been? An angel from Heaven, perhaps sent by
God in His mercy. That was indeed more than likely. The belief was at
once accepted that the rescuer was an angel from heaven. But just then
a lumberman stepped forward who had worked at the mill and said: “It was
Bonnyboy, Grim Carpenter’s son. I saw him jump on his gray colt.”
Bonnyboy, Grim Carpenter’s son. It couldn’t be possible. But the
lumberman insisted that it was, and they had to believe him, though,
of course, it was a disappointment. But where was Bonnyboy? He deserved
thanks, surely. And, moreover, that gray colt was a valuable animal. It
was to be hoped that it was not drowned.
The water had now subsided, though it yet overflowed the banks; so that
trees, bent and splintered by the terrific force of the flood, grew far
out in the river. The foul dams had all been swept away, and the tawny
torrent ran again with tumultuous rapids in its old channel. Of the
mills scarcely a vestige was left except slight cavities in the banks,
and a few twisted beams clinging to the rocks where they had stood. The
ruins of the village, with jagged chimneys and broken walls, loomed
out of a half-inundated meadow, through which erratic currents were
sweeping. Here and there lay a dead cow or dog, and in the branches of
a maple-tree the carcasses of two sheep were entangled. In this marshy
field a stooping figure was seen wading about, as if in search of
something. The water broke about his knees, and sometimes reached up to
his waist. He stood like one dazed, and stared into the brown swirling
torrent. Now he poked something with his boat-hook, now bent down and
purled some dead thing out of a copse of shrubbery in which it had
been caught. The sun rose higher in the sky, and the red vapors were
scattered. But still the old man trudged wearily about, with the stony
stare in his eyes, searching for him whom he had lost. One company after
another now descended from the hill-sides, and from the high-lying farms
which had not been reached by the flood came wagons with provisions and
clothes, and men and women eager and anxious to help. They shouted to
the old man in the submerged field, and asked what he was looking for.
But he only shook his head, as if he did not understand.
“Why, that is old Grim the carpenter,” said someone. “Has anybody seen
Bonnyboy?”
But no one had seen Bonnyboy.
“Do you want help?” they shouted to Grim; but they got no answer.
Hour after hour old Grim trudged about in the chilly water searching
for his son. Then, about noon, when he had worked his way far down the
river, he caught sight of something which made his heart stand still. In
a brown pool, in which a half-submerged willow-tree grew, he saw a large
grayish shape which resembled a horse. He stretched out the boat-hook
and rolled it over. Dumbly, fearlessly, he stood staring into the pool.
There lay his son--there lay Bonnyboy stark and dead.
The cold perspiration broke out upon Grim’s brow, and his great breast
labored. Slowly he stooped down, drew the dead body out of the water,
and tenderly laid it across his knees. He stared into the sightless
eyes, and murmuring a blessing, closed them. There was a large
discolored spot on the forehead, as of a bruise. Grim laid his hand
softly upon it, and stroked away the yellow tuft of hair.
“My poor lad,” he said, while the tears coursed down his wrinkled
cheeks, “you had a weak head, but your heart, Bonnyboy--your heart was
good.”