"Powder? Going to blow up dot ice?" said Mr. Rosenstein doubtfully; but he hurried to bring out a keg of it, and a long line of fuze.
"Now, Vosh. No time to lose. You mustn"t run any needless risk, but I believe you can do it. I"ll go as far as into the mill with you."
"Joshua," said Mrs. Farnham, "will he need help? His weight"s a good deal lighter than yours."
"We"ll see about it when we get there. That pack has got to be broken: so has the one at the upper dam."
They were once more on the hill-road, and nearing the point of danger.
Great piles of saw-logs, ready for the saw-mill, had acc.u.mulated on the slope between the mill and what was now the sh.o.r.e; and already quite a number of adventurers had crossed upon them to the building itself, and back again. Not a soul had cared to remain more than a minute, and none had ventured beyond.
"Go, Joshua," said Mrs. Farnham. "He"ll need advice, if he doesn"t need any thing else."
Corry took the reins, and his father and Vosh stepped out. There were thirty or forty men and boys standing around and watching the flood, and all were eager to know what was coming; but the answers given them had a short, gruff sound, as if uttered by somebody too much in earnest to talk.
"Right along, Vosh," said the deacon. "The logs are firm enough."
So they were, and it was easy to climb through an open window into the second story of the mill. Through all the lower floor the water was rushing and gurgling, and the building shook all over as if it were chilly.
An opposite window was reached, and there before them was the ice-pack.
Only at one point, beyond the centre, was there any water going over it; and it seemed only too strong and solid.
"As far out as you can, Vosh," said the deacon. "Put it into a hole of some kind, if you can."
Without a word of comment or reply, the brave boy crept through the window, and let himself down upon the ice, and the keg was handed him.
"Use the whole length of the fuze," said the deacon. "You"ll have time enough."
"Mr. Farnham," said Vosh, "you go back right away, now."
"I don"t know but what it"s my duty. Do yours quick, Vosh."
He was every way disposed to obey that suggestion. The roar of the waters, the strange sensation of the presence of great peril, and even the idea that so many people were looking at him, made the situation one from which he was in a hurry to get away. Nearly in the middle of the pack he came to a deep crevice between the heaps of glimmering ice, and into it he lowered his little barrel of explosive meal. He had made it all ready, fixing the end of the fuze in its proper place, and now he led the line back over comparatively dry ice.
"Nothing to put it out," he muttered; "and they said it was water-proof, anyhow."
A stream of people, on foot and in sleighs, had followed that undertaking from the moment when the news of it began to buzz around the village, and a full hundred had now gathered on the slope opposite the mill. They saw Vosh Stebbins scratch a match on his coat-sleeve, and stoop down; and then they saw him turn, and walk swiftly away towards the mill.
"It"s all right, deacon!" he shouted. "She"s a-burning!"
"Come on, Vosh. Hurry up. I just couldn"t go ash.o.r.e till you got back."
Vosh replied with a ringing laugh that had a world of excitement in it.
He followed the deacon back through the mill, and across the perilous bridge of floating logs; and there on the sh.o.r.e stood Susie Hudson, and her aunts, and his mother, but Penelope was the only one who said any thing.
"Vosh," she asked, "did you lose all your powder and your string?"
"Guess I have," replied he; and then it was Adonijah Bunce who remarked,--
"Didn"t quite do it, did ye?"
"Hold on a minute," said Mr. Farnham. "It was a long fuze."
It seemed as if everybody held their breaths till it must hurt them; but, just when they could not do it any longer, a great sheet of smoke and flame shot up from the middle of the ice-pack. It was followed by a dull, heavy report, and by flying fragments of ice.
Had it accomplished any thing?--that was the question in all minds; but it was only a moment before there was another crash, and another. The barrier had been blown away to such a thinness that the pressure from above was sufficient to break it through. The flood rushed forward into the widening channel with a surge and a plunge, and away went the river again, roaring down its half-deserted bed below. More of the cakes of ice to the right and left, now no longer wedged and self-supporting, were swiftly torn away, and the gap so opened could not be closed again.
"I just knew he"d do it," said Mrs. Stebbins proudly, as the round of cheers died away after the explosion and crash. "His father would ha"
done it."
There were plenty to congratulate Vosh; but he and the rest got into the sleigh again, and drove back towards the village. Even before they reached it, the waters were manifestly receding a little, and, when they again stopped in front of Mr. Rosenstein"s store, it was pretty well understood that the first peril was over.
"Now for the pack at the upper dam!" shouted the deacon. "It"s safe to make a hole in it, now our pack is broken.--I want to pay for that powder, Mr. Rosenstein. I was in such a hurry, I forgot it."
"Dot"s joost vot I did," replied the merchant. "You bays for no powder for dot boy. He safe de village. I deals not in pork."
There was a cheer for Mr. Rosenstein; and a dozen men set off towards the upper dam with more powder, and a new idea.
"We have done enough for one day," said Deacon Farnham after he had seen that squad set out. "We can afford to go home.--Mrs. Stebbins, you and Vosh can take dinner with us, and Susie and Port can read their letters."
All were entirely willing, and the team headed for home as if they were conscious of having done something for the public good. The village post-office was kept in Mr. Rosenstein"s store, and that was one reason why the letters had been received in such an hour of excitement. They were not read until after the arrival at the farmhouse, for every one in that sleigh was looking back into the valley to see whether or not the flood was visibly subsiding. Even after they reached the house, Vosh said he felt as if he were about to hear the explosion at the upper dam.
He did not hear it; but the ice there was blown open, nevertheless, and the river had a fair chance to carry all its surplus down stream, and melt it up instead of making dams of it.
Porter Hudson was the first to tear open an envelope.
"Susie!" he shouted almost instantly, "mother"s got home."
Her fingers were busy with her own letter for a moment, and then she turned to Mrs. Farnham.
"Aunt Sarah!"
"O Susie! I know what you mean. They want you at home."
"Yes," said aunt Judith, "I suppose we"ve got to say good-by to "em pretty soon."
"And there"s no winter at all in the city," said Port. "No snow to be seen, and some of the buds are beginning to show."
The letters had a powerful effect upon all the gathering around that dinner-table; and Pen thought she had settled the difficulty, or nearly so, when she broke a long silence with,--
"They might just as well all come up here and live. There"s room for "em all, and it"s ever so much better than the city is."
There was no immediate haste called for, but winter was over. Word came from the village in the morning, that the flood was going down fast, and the mill was entirely safe, and that everybody was talking about the feat performed by Vosh Stebbins. It looked as if Mr. Farnham"s part of it was a little neglected, and Pen remarked with some jealousy,--
"Father got the powder, and all Vosh did was to touch it off."
Everybody seemed to feel blue that evening, for some reason; and the thaw carried away almost all the snow there was left, with hardly a remark being made about it. The fire in the sitting-room burned low, and no fresh logs were heaped upon it. Susie sat in front of it, and remembered a summer day when she had seen nothing there but polished andirons, and branches of fennel.
"Port," said Corry almost mournfully, "I do hope you"ve had a good time.
We all want you to come again."