"Who is blaming it on you?" laughed Page Allison. "Why, honey, it may be doing worse things in other places. We should be thankful we are on a mountain top instead of in a valley." Then she drew Mr. Tucker aside and whispered to him: "See here, Zebedee, don"t you think it is up to us somehow to relieve this situation? If we get giddy and act as though it were a privilege to be wet to the skin, don"t you think we might stir up these people and make a lark of this storm instead of a calamity? You remember you told me once that you and Miss Jinny c.o.x saved the day for a picnic at Monticello when a deluge hit you there?"
Zebedee was the Tucker Twins" pet name for their father, and Page Allison, their best friend, was also privileged to use the name for that eternally youthful gentleman.
"I"ve been thinking we must do something, but the lightning is so severe that somehow I think I must wait."
"You are like Mammy Susan who says: "Whin the Almighty is a-doing his wuck ain"t the time fur a po" ole n.i.g.g.e.r ter be a-doin" hern.""
"Exactly! But it is letting up a bit now, that is, the lightning is, but the rain is even more terrific."
A great crash of thunder, coming simultaneously with a flash of lightning that cracked like a whip, put a stop to conversation, and Page, in spite of her bravery, for she was not the least afraid of storms as a rule--clung to Mr. Tucker. Everybody was clinging to everybody else and in the stress of the moment no one was choosy about the person to cling to. Bill cursed his stars that Tillie was hanging on to Skeeter, as pale as a little ghost, when she might just as well be hanging on to him, while he, in turn, was supporting a strange person he had never even met.
"That hit close to us!" exclaimed someone.
"I believe it hit me!" screamed a girl.
"Where are Susan and Oscar?" cried Douglas. "They will be scared to death."
"When I went down in the kitchen after the tub for the Victrola, Oscar was under the table and Susan was trying to get in the fireless cooker, head first," volunteered Bill. "The kitchen is really the dryest place on the mountain, I fancy."
"You forget the shower bath," suggested Helen. "Turn it on full force and it would still be a thousand times dryer than any place here."
"I tell you what let"s do!" spoke Dum Tucker with an inspiration that all regretted had not come sooner. "Let"s climb up and sit on the rafters!"
Suiting the action to the word, she lightly ascended the trunk of the huge tulip poplar tree that had been left in the center of the pavilion as a support to the roof. The branches had been sawed off, leaving enough projecting to serve as hat racks for the camp. These made an admirable winding stair which an athletic girl like Dum Tucker made nothing of climbing.
"Splendid!" and Dee Tucker followed her twin. In short order many of the more venturesome members of the party were perched on the rafters where they defied the rain to reach them. Even poor Mrs. Carter, her pretty lace dress, if not absolutely ruined, at least with all of its first freshness gone, was persuaded to come up, too, and there she sat trembling and miserable.
"Come on up, Page!" shouted Dee to her chum.
"I"ll be there soon," but Page had an idea that she meant first to propose to Douglas.
Poor Douglas, this was a fitting ending to a day of worry and concern.
She felt like one
"Whom unmerciful disaster Followed fast and followed faster."
Of course country folk are always made to feel in some intangible way that they are responsible for the weather when the weather happens to be bad and city folk are visiting them. Douglas thought she had enough not to bear the weight of the storm, but somehow she felt that that, too, was added to her burden.
"I know exactly what you are thinking," said Page, coming up and putting her wet arm around Douglas" wet waist. "I have lived in the country all my life and whenever we have a big storm at Bracken or unseasonable weather of any sort, we are always held personally responsible for it by a certain type of visitors. You think this is going to harm your camp and keep people from coming, don"t you?"
"Why, how did you know?"
"A little bird told me--a stormy petrel. Now I tell you what we must do: we must whoop things up until all of these week-enders will think that the storm was about the most interesting thing that ever happened at Camp Carter and they will come again hoping for a repet.i.tion of the experience."
"Oh, Page! How can we?" and Douglas smiled in spite of herself.
"Well, let"s call a council and appoint a committee on ways and means."
Mr. Tucker was first on the list, then Helen and Dr. Wright, Bill Tinsley and Lewis Somerville. Nan was so busy looking at the beauties of Nature that she had to be called three times before she answered.
"Come on, Miss Nan!" begged Mr. Tucker. "Your wise little head is wanted on this committee."
"Only look at that bank of clouds as the lightning strikes on the edge of it! It looks like the portals of heaven."
"Yes, and it came mighty near being that same thing," muttered Mr.
Tucker.
The storm was really pa.s.sing. Flashes of lightning and peals of thunder grew farther and farther apart. The rain gave one big last dash and stopped as suddenly as it had begun and then the moon a.s.serted herself once more.
Every member of the hastily called council had some suggestion to make and every suggestion was eagerly taken by the committee on ways and means, that committee being composed of the entire council.
Page said hot coffee for the entire camp must be made immediately and she would do the making. Dr. Wright said a fire would be a pretty good thing if it could be managed, and Bill Tinsley remembered some charcoal braziers that Susan used for ironing and a box of charcoal in the corner of the kitchen. Lewis went to gather up all the blankets in the camp and those that were damp were draped along the rafters by the climbers. Soon the brazier had a glow of coals that sent up heat to the rafters, and Bill also put into use the great iron pot that had hung over the camp fire just for picturesqueness. It had never had anything in it but water, all the cooking being done on kerosene stoves and in a fireless cooker. This made an excellent brazier and the coals were kept red hot with the help of the automobile tire pump in lieu of bellows. Helen had ambition for a welsh rarebit and started in with chafing dishes. This called into requisition more workers and all of the camp was soon busy cutting up cheese and toasting bread and crackers.
The Victrola was relieved of its tub and a ragtime record put on that made all of the workers step lively, which did much toward starting their circulation and warming them up generally. The Victrola ever after that was called Diogenes, after a certain wise man who lived in a tub.
Everybody danced at his work and everybody was laughing and happy. The moonlight was so dazzling in its brilliancy that it was difficult to realize that not ten minutes before the biggest storm Greendale had ever known had been making even the strong men tremble. Nan seemed to be the only person who had not been afraid. Even those who had never before minded a storm had been cowed by this one.
Page declared she had always liked storms before; even when a big gum tree on the lawn at Bracken had been struck before her very eyes she had not been afraid, but this time she was scared to death.
Dum said it seemed to be such a personal storm somehow and each flash seemed to mean her. "I felt my naked soul was exposed to my Maker," she said, as she gave her beloved father a hug. "I have got all kinds of things to "fess to you, Zebedee, things that I never thought made any difference before," she whispered.
"Why, Dumdeedledums! What on earth?"
"Only this evening I smoked a cigarette, although I know you hate it--I owe a little bill for soda water at Miller"s, although I know you don"t want me to charge things--there are other things but I can"t think of them just now. Suppose--only suppose that I had winked out without telling you or worse than that, suppose you had----" but Dum couldn"t finish for the big tears that rolled out of her eyes and which Tucker-like she made no attempt to conceal. Zebedee lent her his handkerchief and then had to wipe his own eyes, too.
"That is all right, honey, but don"t do it any more. And now you turn in and help these Carter girls and Page jolly up this crowd. Page is making coffee and I am going with Somerville to right the tents and take stock of the damage done by the storm."
When Page had first entered the kitchen she found the two negroes bent over in abject woe. Oscar was praying while Susan moaned and groaned with occasional e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.ns like a Greek chorus in a tragedy of Euripides.
"Oh my Gawd, let the deep waters pa.s.s over me and let me come out whiter than the snow and sweeter than the honey in the honey comb--let me be putrified by fire and let the rollin" thunder"s shock pa.s.s me by, leavin" me stand steadfast, a pillar of smoke by day and a pillar of fire by night like unto a lily of the valley, a bright an" mawnin" star that casts its beams on the jest an" the onjest----"
"Yes, my Gawd!" wailed the chorus. "An" the jest an" the onjest shall lie down together like the lion an" the lamb in that great an" mighty day an" who Gawd has united let no man pull acinder."
"Yes! Yes! In that day when the Rock of Ages shall smite the Shibboleth and the Urum an" Thurum may be delivered not--remember thou thy servant Oscar----"
"Yes! Yes, Lord! an" thy handy maiden Susan!"
Page entered and put a stop to the impa.s.sioned appeal by asking for the coffee pot, while Bill Tinsley bore off the big brazier full of charcoal.
"The storm is over, I think," said Page, with difficulty restraining her smiles. "It was very terrible indeed."
"Turrible ain"t no word for it; an" now you say the white folks wants to eat agin? Lord love us if ev"thing don"t make these here week-enders emptier an" emptier. Feedin" of them is like pourin" water down a rat hole."
"Well, you see, uncle, they all of them got so wet that it is wise to give them something hot to drink, and then, too, we want them to forget the terrible storm and think of the camp only with pleasure. You see they might not come back again."
"Forget it! forget it! You can"t lose these here folks. They"d ride all the way from Richmond jes" to fill theyselves up, if for no other reason. They is the empties" lot I ever come acrost."
Dee Tucker followed Page to the kitchen to see if she could be of any a.s.sistance in making the coffee. She felt keenly sorry for the Carters on account of this storm. Not being connected with them in any way, the grumblers had not hesitated to criticize the whole thing in Dee"s presence when they got wet and scared. Dee had done all in her power to soften their judgment, but there were several who did not hesitate to blame the Carter girls because of their wetting. Nothing is so catching as criticism and it spreads like wildfire with the genus boarder. She told Page of her fears.