CLOUDBURST ON GREYLOCK
SKINNY says that if they would let him run the weather he wouldn't have
it 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 in
and the nights are made to sleep. So, why not have it rain nights when
folks are sleeping?
Anyhow, it rained that August as we never had seen it rain before and
never want to see it again. It began in the night, all right, just like
rain ought to do, but it didn't stop. When day came it seemed to take a
fresh start and kept going. It rained all day long and we couldn't have
any fun at all. When it came time to go to bed it quit for a spell, but
it started up again before morning. It wasn't any drizzle, either. It
came down in bucketfuls, until I thought the village would be washed
away and that even Bob's Hill would float off.
Along about ten o'clock in the morning it let up, and pretty soon, who
should come along but Skinny and Bill, barefooted and with old clothes
on. They were worried about the cave, and so was I. While it was raining
so hard I thought about it a lot.
You see, our cave is a little below Peck's Falls, on the bank of the
brook. There are two entrances. One goes in from the top on the upper
side. 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 when
we want to escape from the enemy, or something like that.
The one we use is below, right at the edge of the water, and leads
straight into the real cave. The floor of the cave is even with the
water 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 been
drowned, if Tom Chapin hadn't been with us. He dove down through the
hole into the upper cave and then pulled us through after him. After
that we built a dam so that it would not happen again. I told all about
that once in the doings of the Band. What we were worrying about was the
dam's giving way.
Almost always in summer the brook is fine. It pours a clear stream down
over the rocks and kind of talks to us and sings, so that we like to be
in 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 away
into the valley, and sometimes after very hard rains, the water roars
over the falls and then dashes down through the gulch and over the rocks
below, like some wild beast. At those times, it is a good place to keep
away 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 about
the dam. If it washes out the water will fill our cave."
"And bring a shovel," added Bill. "We'd brought one, only your house is
so 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 the
hill to the top because the rain had made it too slippery to climb
straight up. We knew by the roaring of the water, long before we came in
sight, that Peck's Falls were going it for all they were worth.
When we finally, one after another, crept out on the ledge of Pulpit
Rock, 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, until
with a final leap and roar, it plunged, all white and foaming, into an
angry pool below; then dashed off, with a snarl, through the ravine.
"Gee-whillikens!" said Skinny. "Those are some falls, all right. How'd
you 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 a
wall, and back of it there is a straight drop, a hundred feet or more
down.
"The cave is all right, I guess," Benny told us, when we had held him up
so that he could see over without getting dizzy. "I can see where the
upper entrance is, but, say, the brook is fierce."
We crept off from the rock and made our way carefully down the side of
the ravine to the cave.
It was as Benny had said. The dam had held and was keeping the water
from flooding the cave. The upper entrance was all right, although it
was too muddy to use. The water had backed up around the lower entrance
and part way into the cave, but beyond it was dry.
The little mountain brook had turned into a torrent, raging along like
some wild beast, and foaming over the rocks below, almost like Peck's
Falls. Just above these smaller falls, a tree, which had been carried
down 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 better
fix 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 had
just stood off to say that I thought it would hold now, when Skinny gave
an awful yell and slipped off from a rock, on which he had been
standing, into the flood.
I made a grab for him and missed, and in a second he was whirled down
the stream.
It is queer how much thinking one can do in a second. I thought of the
rocks and of the falls below and of how nobody could go through without
being 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 the
stream, just above the lower falls, and yelling to beat the band.
The water pulled and tore at his legs, dragging them under the tree and
to the very edge of the rock which formed the falls. On his face was
such a look, when we came near, that I knew he could not hang on much
longer.
"Hold on tight, Skinny," I called. "We are coming."
It did not take us long to get there, but when we came opposite to where
he was hanging we could not reach him, and the log was too slippery to
walk on.
"Can't you work yourself along the tree?" I asked. "We can't reach, and
even 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 a
minute, if you don't do something. Get the rope. You always want a
rope."
I hadn't thought of the rope which we have kept in the cave since the
time 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 began
to work his way out, hitching himself along with his hands.
"Run," he yelled again, when he saw us looking with pale faces. "Skinny
saved me and I'll save him, if it takes a leg."
We were halfway to the cave before he had finished speaking. I helped
Benny in through the water, holding him to make sure that he wouldn't
slip, 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 holding
Skinny by the collar with both hands. Skinny had a fresh grip and was
hanging 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 him
say. "Wait until I get a better grip. Now!"
I saw Skinny let go for a second with his left hand. Bill hung to his
collar with one hand and with the other put the loop over his head and
under his arm. Then Skinny grabbed hold again and did the same with the
other hand.
"Pull her tight, boys. Easy now."
We pulled until the noose tightened under Skinny's shoulders. Then we
waded into the water as far as we dared and pulled steadily on the rope.
Skinny scrambled along through the water, digging his finger nails into
the 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 see
Bill, but we knew he was out there because we heard him say "great
snakes."
"Throw me the rope," he called.
He put the noose around his own shoulders, and with our help was soon
standing on the ground.
"I swam her all right," said Skinny, "but I hadn't ought to have done
it. Ma told me not to go swimming to-day."
Just as he said that something seemed to shut us in. The light was
blotted out and we stood there in the dark, scared and wet, wondering
what was going to happen.
We groped our way along until we reached the cave and crawled in through
the water. I didn't like to do it because I knew that if the dam should
give way the cave would be flooded. But we had made it stronger and we
had the rope to climb out by at the upper hole, if the worst should
come.
The water didn't reach far into the cave, and soon we had a light, for
we always keep candles and matches there.
It didn't seem so scary when we could see, sitting down together on a
piece of old carpet which the folks had given us, where we had sat many
times 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 to
rain, when it started.
And rain! Say, we never had seen it rain before. It came down in chunks
and pailfuls. Pretty soon the water began to creep farther into the
cave, and we got out the rope and made ready to crawl through into the
other part, if it should come much farther.
But the dam held, and there we were, snug and safe, with our candle
throwing dancing shadows, and up against one side of the cave, where we
had 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 heard
before and different from any other noise the storm was making. It
scared 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 hung
on I knew he was doing a lot of thinking.
That roar seemed to be the end of the storm, for the rain stopped as
quickly as it had come. It began to grow light again and somewhere in
the woods we heard a bird singing.
We were glad enough to get out into daylight once more and make our way
back to the road.
"Let's see what it was that roared so," I said. "It isn't going to rain
any 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 the
road and went into a field beyond the woods, from which we usually can
see 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, but
clouds still hung about the mountain, shutting him from sight.
Then, as we stood there, the noise came again, only worse this time, and
right in front of us. The ground seemed to tremble under our feet and
from somewhere, back of the cloud which covered the mountainside, came a
mighty roaring and grinding that was awful.
We stood there, clinging to each other and wondering if the end of the
world had come, when suddenly the cloud lifted and Skinny yelled:
"Look! Look!"
Down the face of Greylock, where before trees had been growing, water
was 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 about
that?"
There had been two landslides, the only ones we ever had known to happen
on the mountain.
And to this day, as far as you can see Greylock, you will see those
white scars of bare rock, stretching down his face, as if some monstrous
giant had clawed him, but, of course, no water after that first time.