CHAPTER IV.THE CONSEQUENCES.
But both Monday and Tuesday were unfavourable for nautical adventures, for they brought a driving, pouring rain. Wednesday was too damp for them to go to the meadows at all, and on Thursday came the famous birthday party. So it happened that their dam was forgotten till Saturday, when they turned their steps brookward.
“Oh,lookat the water!” they cried, in one breath, as they came around the curve. They could hardly believe their eyes, for a wide, deep stream filled the bed from side to side. The combination of the heavy rains with their dam had worked wonders.
“See the water roll over the dam, girls! it’s just like the mill-dam,” exclaimed Cricket. “Let’s roll more stones down and make a bigger one still.”
So, with eager hands, they got great stones again, lugging them from their places in thestone wall with infinite toil. They balanced them on the edge of the bridge, and counting, “One,—two,—three,—go!” They each pushed over one, jumping and screaming with delight, at the tremendous splashes, as the water flew up, spattering them well.
“Ow—ow! there goes my hat!” It was Cricket’s wail of anguish, of course. Her next-to-her-best white Leghorn, it was too, for her every-day hat had come to grief through Dixie’s chewing off her ribbons, and was laid up for repairs. There lay the pretty broad-brim, caught right on one of those big stones, with the water lapping all around it. Vainly they ran down to the side of the bridge and tried to reach it. It was too near the middle. The water was already so deep and black that they hesitated to wade in for it.
“Perhaps we can get a stick and reach it,” suggested Hilda. They accordingly broke long sticks from the bushes near by, and then Cricket lay flat down on the bridge, with her head and arms hanging over, and tried to reach the unfortunate hat.
“I can’t quite do it,” she panted. “You hold on to my legs, Eunice, while I lean over a littlefurther, and, Hilda, you catch it with your stick at the side, when I poke it over there.”
So Eunice clung to Cricket’s legs with all her might, while Cricket, fully half over the bridge, made desperate lunges; at last she was successful.
“There it goes! now, catch it, Hilda!” triumphant and breathless.
Just at this critical moment there rose suddenly a tremendous shout from the woods.
“Hi! hi! I’ve caught ye, ye young rogues! I’ll teach ye a lesson, a-dammin’ up my brooks and a-swampin’ my medders, and a-drownin’ my caows! I’ll hev the law on ye!”
Fright and terror! What awful words were these? Cricket hung, paralyzed, over the bridge, and Eunice clung to her black-stockinged legs, with fingers that made black and blue spots in the tender flesh. Hilda, poised on two uncertain stones, stood like a small Colossus, and all of them were white with terror, for an awful, great, big, blue-bloused man was getting over the fence, with, oh, horror, a gun on his shoulder, and a slovenly bull-dog tagging at his heels!
“I’ve been a-watchin’ for ye, since a longtime back,” the man said, leisurely coming nearer, seeing that the children were too frightened to run away. “I’m not a-goin’ to eat yer, but I want to know what in thunder you’re allers up to mischief for. Yer’s the doctor’s gal,” he went on, addressing Cricket, “and yer a limb.”
Cricket drew herself up on to the bridge. They recognized the man now as a farmer in the neighbourhood, a gruff old fellow, whom all the children feared. They quaked still more with fright.
“Now I’ll tell yer, young uns, I could hev the law on ye all for this flew-doodle-um of yourn, and I ain’t sure,—I—ain’t—sure, I ain’t a-goin’ ter. Now, what hev ye got to say fer yourselves why I shouldn’t?”
“We didn’t know we were doing any mischief,” faltered Cricket, really conscience-smitten, as well as frightened.
“Mischief!” growled the farmer, “when ain’t ye young ’uns in mischief? I’m goin’ to hev ye all in the lock-up.”
“Oh, please, please, Mr. Trante,” cried Cricket, in mortal terror. “If we’ve done any mischief, please ask my father to pay you for it, but oh,don’tput us in the lock-up!”
“Wal, I dunno but I re’lly orter,” said Mr. Trante, enjoying their terror.
“See all the damage ye’ve done. Las’ Sunday I was a-strollin’ round my medder, up yander”—pointing up beyond where the white violets grew—“an’ I see it was all soft an sorter soggy, by the bank, and the brook was a considderbal wider. I kinder wondered at that, seein’ as we hadn’t hed no rain for quite a spell then. Ev’ry night this week the caows kep’ a-comin’ home all wet to their knees, an’ las’ night the boy brung ’em in, and says he, ‘the medder’s all a-swimming, and the caows has stayed up into the woods all day.’ It didn’t seem nateral that the rain could ha’ did all thet, so this mornin’ I sot out to explore, an’ I found this big dam o’ yourn. I hed a big mornin’s work, so I hed to leave it till this afternoon. I re’lly orter make ye take ’em out yerselves.”
“I don’t believe we could,” answered Cricket, doubtfully. Then she brightened up.
“But I’ll ask papa to send Thomas to-morrow morning to help you. I’m so sorry about the cows, Mr. Trante, and getting the meadow so wet. We never thought. Will it ever dry up again?” she asked, anxiously.
“Wall, I guess the medder’ll dry up, if you give it a chance,” the farmer answered, grimly. “How did you young rogues roll up all them big stones, tearin’ down my stone walls? Look at them big holes!”
Three shamefaced children looked more downcast than ever at this new view of their mischief.
“I’ll ask papa to pay you for all the trouble we’ve made,” repeated Cricket.
“Wal, I dunno how I could put a money vally on it, skursely,” growled the man, “but I’ll see your pa. An’ about the lock-up. Ef you’ll promise me not to go a-dammin’ up no more streams, not even little dribblin’ things like that ’un there was, mebbe I’ll let ye off this time.”
“Oh, we promise!” cried the three, fervently, while their hearts danced jigs of joy at their escape.
“An’ tell yer pa to send Thomas over in the morning at seven o’clock sharp, an’ I an’ he’ll work at them stuns a spell. Looks like it would be considerable of a chore to hist ’em out,” said Mr. Trante, looking at the stones, through one eye.
“Come, Bruiser,” he went on, “you an’ me’sa-goin fur the caows now. Ye kin go home, young ’uns, and don’t do no more damage than ye kin help a-doin’, while ye’re going thar;” and three very subdued-looking children immediately took advantage of his permission to disappear around the curve.
The next day Thomas told Dr. Ward that he had had the hardest half-day’s work he had done in one while.
“Them crazy young ’uns will be the death o’ me,” he grumbled. “Me an’ Dan’el Trante worked up’ards of half a day to ease them stuns up. An’ the next time they go to dammin’ up creeks, I ’low they better do suthin’ else with the time.”
And the children concluded they would.