"They was all drowned, two thousand little baby chicks. They was
sitting on their stoves like they was asleep. The water just come right
up under 'em. I guess two-three gasps, and they was all dead."
"Oh." Grandpa held tight to his patience. He was sorry about the
chickens, but he had to know about his ponies. He cleared his throat
and leaned forward. "Tom!" he shouted. "_What about my ponies?_"
There was a long pause. Then the voice at the other end stammered, "I
don't know, Clarence, but no cause to worry--yet. Stallions got weather
sense. They'll just drive their mares up on little humpy places."
Grandpa wasn't breathing. His face turned dull red.
"They must of sensed this storm," the voice went on. "Tonight after I
watered 'em, they just wanted to stay close to the house. But I drove
'em out to the low pasture like always. I'll go out later with my
flashbeam. You call me back, Clarence."
There was a choking sound. The children couldn't tell whether it was
Grandpa or a noise on the line.
"You hear me, Clarence? I'll go out now. Call me back."
Blindly Grandpa put the receiver in place. He went to the window and
stood there, his head bowed.
No one knew what to say. Their world seemed to hang like a rock
teetering on a cliff.
The quiet felt heavy in the room, with only the wind screaming.
Suddenly Grandpa turned around. His eyes seemed to throw sparks. "Idy!
Play something loud. Bust that organ-box wide open. March music, mebbe.
Anything to drown out that wind. And Paul and Maureen, quit gawpin'.
Get up off'n the floor and sing! Loud and strong. Worryin' won't do us
a lick o' good."
Grandma was relieved to have something to do. She plumped herself on
the organ bench, spreading out her skirt as if she were on the concert
stage. "Now then," she turned to Grandpa, "I'll play 'Fling Out the
Banner.'"
"I don't know the words," Paul said.
"Me either," Maureen chimed in.
"Ye can read, can't ye?" Grandpa barked. "Here's the song book. Go
ahead now. I'll be yer audience."
The organ notes rolled out strong and vibrant, and the children sang
lustily:
"Fling out the banner, let it float
Skyward and seaward, high and wide...."
When they were well into the second verse, Grandpa silently tiptoed
into the hall, put on his gumboots and slicker, and let himself out
into the night.
A flying piece of wood narrowly missed his head as he went down the
steps, and a piece of wet pulpy paper hit him full in the face. He
wiped it off and focused his light to see the path to the corral. But
there was no path; it was covered by water. He drew his head into
his coat and sloshed forward, bent double against the wind. "'Tain't
a hurricane, it's naught but a full tide," he kept telling himself.
"Still, I don't like it, with Misty so close to her time."
Inside the shed all was dry and warm. Misty was lying asleep, with
Skipper back-to-back. The light brought the collie to his feet in a
twinkling. He almost knocked Grandpa down with his welcome. Misty
opened wide her jaws and yawned in Grandpa's face.
He couldn't help laughing. "See!" he told himself. "Nothing to worry
about. Hoss-critters is far smarter'n human-critters." He fumbled in
his pocket and found a few tatters of tobacco and said to himself,
"Watch her come snuzzlin' up to me." And she did. And he liked the feel
of her tongue on his hand and the brightness of her eye in the beam of
his flashlight.
Affectionately he wiped his sticky palm on her neck and said, "I got to
go in, Misty, now I know ye're all right. See you in the morning, and
by then all the water'll slump back into the ocean where it b'longs."
When he came into the kitchen, Grandma was standing with a broom across
the door. "Praises be, ye're safe!" she exclaimed. "I been holdin'
these young'uns at bay. They wanted to follow ye."
"Grandpa! Has the colt come?" Maureen and Paul asked in one breath.
"Nope. And if I'm any judge, 'tain't soon. Now everybody to bed. Things
is all right. We got to think that."
"Paul and I, we can't go to bed yet," Maureen protested.
"And why can't ye?"
"We haven't done our homework."
"Clarence," Grandma said, "you're all tuckered out, and you can't call
Tom Reed 'cause our telephone's dead as a doorknob. So you go on to
bed. I'll listen to the homework so's no more members of this household
tippytoe out behind my back."
Grandpa patted everyone good night and went off, loosening his
suspenders as he went.
"I feel like Abraham Lincoln studying by candlelight," Maureen said,
bringing her pile of books close to the lantern.
"Wish you looked more like him," Paul teased, "instead of like a wild
horse with a mane that's never been brushed."
"Humph, _your_ hair looks like a stubblefield."
"Children, stop it!" Grandma interrupted. "Ye can have yer druthers.
Either ye go to bed or ye get to work."
Paul weighed the choices, then reluctantly opened his science book.
But at the very first page he let out a whistle. "Listen to this! 'If
the ancients had known what the earth is _really_ like, they would have
named it Oceanus, not Earth. Huge areas of water cover seventy per cent
of its surface. It is indeed a watery planet.'"
"Now that's right interesting," Grandma said, putting a few sticks of
wood into the stove.
"Yes," Maureen pouted, "a lot more interesting than trying to figure
how many times 97 goes into 10,241."
Paul waxed to his lesson as a preacher to his sermon. "Listen! 'People
used to say the tides were the breathing of the earth. Now we know they
are caused by the gra-vi--gra-vi-ta--gra-vi-ta-tion-al pull of the moon
and sun.'"
"I do declare!" Grandma said. "It makes my skin run prickly jes'
thinkin' about it."
"Go on!" Maureen urged. "What's next?"
Paul read half to himself, half aloud. "'When the moon, sun, and earth
are directly in line--as at new moon and full moon--the moon's and the
sun's pulls are added together and we have unusually high tides called
spring tides.'"
Grandma sat rocking and repeating, "I declare! I do declare!" until
her head nodded. Suddenly she jerked up and looked at the clock. "Paul
Beebe! Stop! It's way past ten and, lessons or no, we all got to get to
bed. _This instant!_"
_Chapter 7_