THE COMING OF THE TIDE
While the corn grew, school went on and, like the corn, Chad's
schooling put forth leaves and bore fruit rapidly. The boy's mind was
as clear as his eye and, like a mountain-pool, gave back every image
that passed before it. Not a word dropped from the master's lips that
he failed to hear and couldn't repeat, and, in a month, he had put
Dolph and Rube, who, big as they were, had little more than learned the
alphabet, to open shame; and he won immunity with his fists from gibe
and insult from every boy within his inches in school--including Tad
Dillon, who came in time to know that it was good to let the boy alone.
He worked like a little slave about the house, and, like Jack, won his
way into the hearts of old Joel and his wife, and even of Dolph and
Rube, in spite of their soreness over Chad's having spelled them both
down before the whole school. As for Tall Tom, he took as much pride as
the school-master in the boy, and in town, at the grist-mill, the
cross-roads, or blacksmith shop, never failed to tell the story of the
dog and the boy, whenever there was a soul to listen. And as for
Melissa, while she ruled him like a queen and Chad paid sturdy and
uncomplaining homage, she would have scratched out the eyes of one of
her own brothers had he dared to lay a finger on the boy. For Chad had
God's own gift--to win love from all but enemies and nothing but
respect and fear from them. Every morning, soon after daybreak, he
stalked ahead of the little girl to school, with Dolph and Rube
lounging along behind, and, an hour before sunset, stalked back in the
same way home again. When not at school, the two fished and played
together--inseparable.
Corn was ripe now, and school closed and Chad went with the men into
the fields and did his part, stripping the gray blades from the yellow
stalks, binding them into sheaves, stowing them away under the low roof
of the big barn, or stacking them tent-like in the fields--leaving each
ear perched like a big roosting bird on each lone stalk. And when the
autumn came, there were husking parties and dances and much merriment;
and, night after night, Chad saw Sintha and the school-master in front
of the fire--"settin' up"--close together with their arms about each
other's necks and whispering. And there were quilting parties and
housewarmings and house-raisings--one that was of great importance to
Caleb Hazel and to Chad. For, one morning, Sintha disappeared and came
back with the tall young hunter in the deerskin leggings--blushing
furiously--a bride. At once old Joel gave them some cleared land at the
head of a creek; the neighbors came in to build them a cabin, and among
them all, none worked harder than the school-master; and no one but
Chad guessed how sorely hit he was.
Meanwhile, the woods high and low were ringing with the mellow echoes
of axes, and the thundering crash of big trees along the mountain-side;
for already the hillsmen were felling trees while the sap was in the
roots, so that they could lie all winter, dry better and float better
in the spring, when the rafts were taken down the river to the little
capital in the Bluegrass. And Caleb Hazel said that he would go down on
a raft in the spring and perhaps Chad could go with him who knew? For
the school-master had now made up his mind finally--he would go out
into the world and make his way out there; and nobody but Chad noticed
that his decision came only after, and only a little while after, the
house-raising at the head of the creek.
When winter came, school opened again, and on Saturdays and Sundays and
cold snowy nights, Chad and the school-master--for he too lived at the
Turners' now--sat before the fire in the kitchen, and the school-master
read to him from "Ivanhoe" and "The Talisman," which he had brought
from the Bluegrass, and from the Bible which had been his own since he
was a child. And the boy drank in the tales until he was drunk with
them and learned the conscious scorn of a lie, the conscious love of
truth and pride in courage, and the conscious reverence for women that
make the essence of chivalry as distinguished from the unthinking code
of brave, simple people. He adopted the master's dignified phraseology
as best he could; he watched him, as the master stood before the fire
with his hands under his coat-tails, his chin raised, and his eyes
dreamily upward, and Tall Tom caught the boy in just this attitude one
day and made fun of him before all the others. He tried some
high-sounding phrases on Melissa, and Melissa told him he must be
crazy. Once, even, he tried to kiss her hand gallantly and she slapped
his face. Undaunted, he made a lance of white ash, threaded some loose
yarn into Melissa's colors, as he told himself, sneaked into the barn,
where Beelzebub was tied, got on the sheep's back and, as the old ram
sprang forward, couched his lance at the trough and shattered it with a
thrill that left him trembling for half an hour. It was too good to
give up that secret joust and he made another lance and essayed another
tournament, but this time Beelzebub butted the door open and sprang
with a loud ba-a-a into the yard and charged for the gate--in full view
of old Joel, the three brothers, and the school-master, who were
standing in the road. Instinctively, Chad swung on in spite of the roar
of laughter and astonishment that greeted him and, as Tom banged the
gate, the ram swerved and Chad shot off sidewise as from a catapult and
dropped, a most unheroic little knight, in the mire. That ended Chad's
chivalry in the hills, for in the roars of laughter that greeted him,
Chad recognized Caleb Hazel's as the loudest. If HE laughed, chivalry
could never thrive there, and Chad gave it up; but the seeds were sown.
The winter passed, and what a time Chad and Jack had, snaking logs out
of the mountains with two, four, six--yes, even eight yoke of oxen,
when the log was the heart of a monarch oak or poplar--snaking them to
the chute; watching them roll and whirl and leap like jack-straws from
end to end down the steep incline and, with one last shoot in the air,
roll, shaking, quivering, into a mighty heap on the bank of Kingdom
Come. And then the "rafting" of those logs--dragging them into the pool
of the creek, lashing them together with saplings driven to the logs
with wooden pins in auger-holes--wading about, meanwhile, waist deep in
the cold water: and the final lashing of the raft to a near-by tree
with a grape-vine cable--to await the coming of a "tide."
Would that tide never come? It seemed not. The spring ploughing was
over, the corn planted; there had been rain after rain, but gentle
rains only. There had been prayers for rain:
"O Lord," said the circuit-rider, "we do not presume to dictate to
Thee, but we need rain, an' need it mighty bad. We do not presume to
dictate, but, if it pleases Thee, send us, not a gentle sizzle-sizzle,
but a sod-soaker, O Lord, a gullywasher. Give us a tide, O Lord!"
Sunrise and sunset, old Joel turned his eye to the east and the west
and shook his head. Tall Tom did the same, and Dolph and Rube studied
the heavens for a sign. The school-master grew visibly impatient and
Chad was in a fever of restless expectancy. The old mother had made him
a suit of clothes--mountain-clothes--for the trip. Old Joel gave him a
five-dollar bill for his winter's work. Even Jack seemed to know that
something unusual was on hand and hung closer about the house, for fear
he might be left behind.
Softly at last, one night, came the patter of little feet on the roof
and passed--came again and paused; and then there was a rush and a
steady roar that wakened Chad and thrilled him as he lay listening. It
did not last long, but the river was muddy enough and high enough for
the Turner brothers to float the raft slowly out from the mouth of
Kingdom Come and down in front of the house, where it was anchored to a
huge sycamore in plain sight. At noon the clouds gathered and old Joel
gave up his trip to town.
"Hit'll begin in about an hour, boys," he said, and in an hour it did
begin. There was to be no doubt about this flood. At dusk, the river
had risen two feet and the raft was pulling at its cable like an
awakening sea-monster. Meanwhile, the mother had cooked a great pone of
corn-bread, three feet in diameter, and had ground coffee and got sides
of bacon ready. All night it poured and the dawn came clear, only to
darken into gray again. But the river--the river! The roar of it filled
the woods. The frothing hem of it swished through the tops of the trees
and through the underbrush, high on the mountain-side. Arched slightly
in the middle, for the river was still rising, it leaped and surged,
tossing tawny mane and fleck and foam as it thundered along--a mad,
molten mass of yellow struck into gold by the light of the sun. And
there the raft, no longer the awkward monster it was the day before,
floated like a lily-pad, straining at the cable as lightly as a
greyhound leaping against its leash.
The neighbors were gathered to watch the departure--old Jerry Budd,
blacksmith and "yarb doctor," and his folks; the Cultons and
Middletons, and even the Dillons--little Tad and Whizzer--and all. And
a bright picture of Arcadia the simple folk made, the men in homespun
and the women with their brilliant shawls, as they stood on the bank
laughing, calling to one another, and jesting like children. All were
aboard now and there was no kissing nor shaking hands in the farewell.
The good old mother stood on the bank, with Melissa holding to her
apron and looking at Chad gravely.
"Take good keer o' yo'self, Chad," she said kindly, and then she looked
down at the little girl. "He's a-comin' back, honey--Chad's a-comin'
back." And Chad nodded brightly, but Melissa drew her apron across her
mouth, dropped her eyes to the old rifle in the boy's lap, and did not
smile.
All were aboard now--Dolph and Rube, old Squire Middleton, and the
school-master, all except Tall Tom, who stood by the tree to unwind the
cable.
"Hold on!" shouted the Squire.
A raft shot suddenly around the bend above them and swept past with the
Dillon brothers Jake and Jerry, nephews of old Tad Dillon, at bow and
stern--passed with a sullen wave from Jerry and a good-natured smile
from stupid Jake.
"All right," Tom shouted, and he unwound the great brown pliant vine
from the sycamore and leaped aboard. Just then there was a mad howl
behind the house and a gray streak of light flashed over the bank and
Jack, with a wisp of rope around his neck, sprang through the air from
a rock ten feet high and landed lightly on the last log as the raft
shot forward. Chad gulped once and his heart leaped with joy, for he
had agreed to leave Jack with old Joel, and old Joel had tied the dog
in the barn.
"Hi!" shouted the old hunter. "Throw that dawg off, Chad--throw him
off."
But Chad shook his head and smiled.
"He won't go back," he shouted, and, indeed, there was Jack squatted on
his haunches close by his little master and looking gravely back as
though he were looking a last good-by.
"Hi there!" shouted old Joel again. "How am I goin to git along without
that dawg? Throw him off, Boy--throw him off, I tell ye!" Chad seized
the dog by the shoulders, but Jack braced himself and, like a child,
looked up in his master's face. Chad let go and shook his head.
A frantic yell from Tall Tom at the bow oar drew every eye to him. The
current was stronger than anyone guessed and the raft was being swept
by an eddy straight for the point of the opposite shore where there was
a sharp turn in the river.
"Watch out thar," shouted old Joel, "you're goin to 'bow'!" Dolph and
Rube were slashing the stern oar forward and back through the swift
water, but straight the huge craft made for that deadly point. Every
man had hold of an oar and was tussling in silence for life. Every man
on shore was yelling directions and warning, while the women shrank
back with frightened faces. Chad scarcely knew what the matter was, but
he gripped his rifle and squeezed Jack closer to him. He heard Tom roar
a last warning as the craft struck, quivered a moment, and the stern
swept around. The craft had "bowed."
"Watch out--jump, boys, jump! Watch when she humps! Watch yo' legs!"
These were the cries from the shore, and still Chad did not understand.
He saw Tom leap from the bow, and, as the stern swung to the other
shore, Dolph, too, leaped. Then the stern struck. The raft humped in
the middle like a bucking horse--the logs ground savagely together.
Chad heard a cry of pain from Jack and saw the dog fly up in the air
and drop in the water. He and his gun had gone up, too, but he came
back on the raft with one leg in between two logs and he drew it up in
time to keep the limb from being smashed to a pulp as the logs crashed
together again, but not quickly enough to save the foot from a painful
squeeze. Then he saw Tom and Dolph leap back again, the raft whirled on
and steadied in its course, and behind him he saw Jack swimming feebly
for the shore--fighting the waves for his life, for the dog was hurt.
Twice he turned his eyes despairingly toward Chad, and the boy would
have leaped in the water to save him if Tom had not caught him by the
arm.
"Tell him to git to shore," he said quickly, and Chad motioned, when
Jack looked again, and the dog obediently made for land. Old Joel was
calling tenderly:
"Come on, Jack; come on, ole feller!"
Chad watched with a thumping heart. Once Jack went under, but gave no
sound. Again he disappeared, and when he came up he gave a cry for
help, but when he heard Chad's answering cry he fought on stroke by
stroke until Chad saw old Joel reach out from the bushes and pull him
in. And Chad could see that one of his hind legs hung limp. Then the
raft swung around the curve out of sight.
Behind, the whole crowd rushed down to the water's edge. Jack tried to
get away from old Joel and scramble after Chad on his broken leg, but
old Joel held him, soothing him, and carried him back to the house,
where the old "yarb doctor" put splints on the leg and bound it up
tightly, just as though it had been the leg of a child. Melissa was
crying and the old man put his hand on her head.
"He'll be all right, honey. That leg'll be as good as the other one in
two or three weeks. It's all right, little gal."
Melissa stopped weeping with a sudden gulp. But when Jack was lying in
the kitchen by the fire alone, she slipped in and put her arm around
the dog's head, and, when Jack began to lick her face, she bent her own
head down and sobbed.