The Young Surveyor Part 39

At the same time Jack and Link appeared, half running, half blown by the tempest up the road. Vinnie watched them from the window, and saw the enormous sloping pillar of dust and leaves, and torn boughs, whirling above their heads, and overwhelming everything in its roaring cloud.

The last she remembered was Jack and Link darting by the corner of the house, and Snowfoot tugging at his halter. Then a strange electric thrill shot through her, the house shook with a great crash, and all was dark.

CHAPTER x.x.xV.

PEAKSLOW IN A TIGHT PLACE.--CECIE.

The storm could not have been two minutes in pa.s.sing. Then it suddenly grew light, the tempest lulled, the heavens cleared, and in not more than ten minutes the sunset sky was smiling again, a sea of tranquil gold, over the western woods.

Fortunately, only the skirt of the storm had swept over Betterson's house, doing no very serious damage.

When Vinnie looked again from the window, she saw Snowfoot, still tied by the halter, standing with drooping head and tail, wet with rain.

Jack, hat in hand, his hair wildly tumbled, was already at the horse's head, laughing excitedly, and looking back at Rufe and Link, who were coming to his side. The buggy, he noticed, had been whirled half-way round by the wind, so that the rear end was turned toward the porch.

Through it all, Lill had clung in terror to Vinnie, whose arms were still about her. Cecie sat in her chair by the supper-table, white and speechless from the electric shock which all had felt, and she more sensibly than the rest. Caroline was in the next room with the child, whose cries, for a while drowned in the terrible uproar, now broke forth again, strenuous and shrill. Mr. Betterson, holding the frightened Chokie, opened the door, and calmly asked the boys if they were hurt.

"We are all right, I guess," cried Rufe. "Wad put for the barn, to make room for the horse and buggy, which I didn't have time to get there. I don't know where Rad is."

Wad now appeared; and at the same time the cattle, started homeward by the storm, came cantering down the woodland road, with the rattling cowbell, and ran for refuge to the barnyard.

"The big oak behind the house, there,--have you seen it?" cried Wad.

"It's twisted off. And where's the well-curb?"

"That flew to pieces, and the boards went up into the air like kites,--I saw them," said Link. "Where's the dog?"

"He's in the bushes, or under a log somewhere," Jack replied. "He was shot at once, with a gun held close to his head,--luckily, there was no lead in it. For a long time he was afraid of a gun; and thunder, or any big noise, frightens him even now."

"Some of our fences look pretty flat,--rails tumbled every which way!"

said Rufe. "A good deal of damage must have been done south of us."

"Something looks odd over there toward Peakslow's,--what is it?" cried Link.

"Some of the tree-tops by the road have been lopped off," replied Jack.

"That isn't all," said Lord Betterson. "Sure as fate, something has happened to Peakslow's buildings."

"That is what I saw!" Vinnie exclaimed. "Something turned over in the air like the roof of a house."

"I thought just now I heard cries in that direction," said Jack. "Hark a moment!"

"There comes somebody," said Rufe, as a girl of twelve years, barefoot, bonnetless, wild with fright, came running up the road. "It's 'Lecty Ann!"

Out of breath, almost out of her wits, the girl ran as far as the door-yard fence, then stopped, as if unable or afraid to go farther, caught hold of the pickets, and, putting her pale face between them, gasped out something which n.o.body could understand.

"What is it?--what's the matter?" cried Jack, advancing toward her.

"House--blowed down--covered up!" was all she could articulate.

"Who is covered up?"

"Don't know--some of the folks--pa, I guess."

Jack did not stop to hear more; but, fired with a generous impulse to aid the unfortunate, whoever they might be, gave one backward look, threw up his hand as a signal, shouted "Help, boys!" ran to a length of fence which the wind had thrown down, bounded over like a deer, and was off.

Vinnie followed; but was soon overtaken by Mr. Betterson and the boys, who pa.s.sed her, as if running a race. Then she heard screams behind; and there was Chokie, sprawling over the prostrate fence, which he had rashly taken, in his eagerness to keep up with Lill.

By the time Chokie was extricated Mrs. Betterson appeared, babe in arms, tottering out of the door, and hastening, in the excitement of the moment, to learn what dreadful catastrophe had overtaken their neighbors.

"Stay with Arthur and your mother," Vinnie said to Lill; "_I_ may do something to help." And away she sped.

'Lecty Ann, met by Mrs. Betterson at the gate, was now able to tell more of her story; and so strange, so tragical it seemed, that Caroline forgot all about her ill health, the baby in her arms, and Cecie left alone in the house, and brought up the rear of the little procession,--Lill and 'Lecty Ann and Chokie preceding her down the road.

They had not gone far, when Lion came out of the woods, with downcast ears and tail, ashamed of his recent cowardly conduct. And so, accompanied by the dog and the children,--Lill lugging the baby at last,--Caroline approached the scene of the disaster.

The whole force of the tornado seemed to have fallen upon Peakslow's buildings. The stable was unroofed, and the barn had lost a door.

The house had fared still worse: it was--even as 'Lecty Ann had said--almost literally "blowed down."

It had consisted of two parts,--a pretty substantial log-cabin, which dated back to the earliest days of the settlement, and a framed addition, called a lean-to, or "linter." The roof of the old part had been lifted, and tumbled, with some of the upper logs, a ma.s.s of ruins, over upon the linter, which had been crushed to the ground by the weight.

Mrs. Peakslow and the girls and younger children were in the log-house at the time; and, marvellous as it seemed, all had escaped serious injury.

The boys were in the field with their father, and had run a race with the tornado. The tornado beat. Dud was knocked down within a few rods of the house. Zeph was blown up on a stack of hay, and lodged there; the stack itself--and this was one of the curious freaks of the whirlwind--being uninjured, except that it was canted over a little, and ruffled a good deal, as if its feathers had been stroked the wrong way.

Mr. Peakslow was ahead of the boys; and they thought he must have reached the linter.

Zeph, slipping down from his perch in the haystack, as soon as the storm had pa.s.sed, and seeing the house in ruins, and his mother and sisters struggling to get out, had run screaming for help down the road toward Mr. Wiggett's. Dud remained; and by pushing from without, while the imprisoned family lifted and pulled from within, helped to move a log which had fallen down against the closed door, and so aided the escape from the house.

'Lecty Ann ran to the nearest neighbor's up the river. The rest stayed by the ruins; and there Lord Betterson and Jack--the earliest on the spot--found them, a terrified group, bewildered, bewailing, gazing hopelessly and helplessly at the unroofed cabin and crushed linter, and calling for "Pa."

"Where is your husband, Mrs. Peakslow?" cried Jack.

"O, I don't know where he is, 'thout he's there!" said the poor woman, with a gesture of despair toward the ruined linter.

"This rubbish must be removed," said Lord Betterson. "If friend Peakslow is under it, he can't be taken out too soon."

And with his own hands he set to work, displaying an energy of will and coolness of judgment which would have astonished Jack, if he had not once before seen something of what was in the man.

Jack and the boys seconded their father; and now Dud came and worked side by side with Wad and Rufe.

A broken part of the roof was knocked to pieces, and the rafters were used for levers and props. The main portion of the roof was next turned over, and got out of the way. Then one by one the logs were removed; all hands, from Lord Betterson down to Link, working like heroes.

Meanwhile, Vinnie did what she could to aid and comfort Mrs. Peakslow; and Caroline and her little company came and looked on.