A Canadian Farm Mystery; Or, Pam the Pioneer

by Bessie Marchant

The hours sped away. Pam was so busy she scarcely noticed their going. The big sitting-room was as clean as hands could make it. The breakfast dishes were washed, and she was busy putting the big kitchen into what she called normal tidiness, when she was startled by a blaze of sunshine. They had hardly seen the sun for days and days, while the rain had poured down with dreary persistence.

She looked at the clock then, and was surprised to find that it was long past noon. Jack had not come back. Doubtless Mrs. Buckle had need of him, and would give him some dinner there. Pam sighed with thankfulness to think there was no need for her to worry about getting a meal. She got herself some food, which she shared with the dog; then, having fed the chickens, which were clamouring loudly about the door, she put on her hat, and, taking a stout stick from the wood-pile, went across the field to the creek, revelling in the warmth and beauty of the sunshine, and humming a little tune because she felt so very cheerful.

The creek was higher than ever. One of her rugs had been lifted so high that it had floated off its mooring branch and had started on a down-creek trip, but had happily caught on a trail of brambles a little distance down, where it was momentarily held.

“It is lucky I happened along just as I did!” she muttered, and after some skilful handling with her big stick she retrieved the errant rug, towed it back to its mooring and proceeded to beat it, laying on the strokes with great vigour, although her arms were beginning to ache with all the work she had done that day. She was raising so much water with her active strokes that in spite of her waterproof there seemed a likelihood of her getting wet through, when she was startled by the amount of wreckage floating past. There were boxes and barrels, a chicken coop or two, and a bamboo chair, which rode on the swiftly-flowing current with an air of rakish irresponsibility that would have been amusing if it had not been so horribly suggestive of someone’s drowned-out home.

“I wonder what is the matter, and whose house has been flooded?” she said, and then she stood leaning on her stick surveying the wreckage, which was coming faster and faster, while the creek was crowded with all sorts of things sailing along.

A shrill screaming smote on her ear, and at the sound her heart seemed to stand still. Instinctively she looked about for something to cling to, and, catching at the branch to which her biggest rug was moored, stood peering up-stream to get the first possible glimpse of what was coming.

A big table with its legs uppermost was careering down-stream, and crouching on it was the drenched figure of a small, white-faced boy, who was uttering shrill cries for help. She had seen him before, but where? Even as she asked herself the question there flashed across her mind the remembrance of the inquiry in the Doctor’s wagon-house, and the small boy who had made grimaces at her when she came out. The bitter injustice of the insult had struck her then, and it came across her now. There had been no reason so far as she could see why he should have treated her in such a fashion, and she was still in the dark as to the cause.

“I will pull him out, and then he shall tell me, the little wretch!” she murmured, and the thought of possible danger to herself never even entered her head. Plunging down into the water until it was up to her waist, she started shouting her loudest to attract his attention, and waving her stick to make him see that help was at hand. The branch would not let her go far enough, but by catching at the rug that floated moored to the branch she was able to get ever so much farther out. Luckily the creek did not seem to be very deep at that place, and the footing was firm. The boy had seen her now, and was shrieking to her to help him, and to save him from being drowned.

“Catch hold of the stick!” she screamed, realizing that she would barely reach him even now, and as she could not swim it would be madness to venture beyond the reach of the floating rug. “If I had not been washing those carpets I could have done nothing for him!” she gasped, and then caught her breath sharply, for, stretch her arm as she might, she could not get her stick within reach of his hand. In another moment he would be beyond reach, the current flowed so fast. She must get him, she must! Putting her foot forward with a cautious movement she found firm ground, and letting the rug go she thrust the stick out farther, and had the joy of feeling it gripped. But the jerk almost upset her. She reeled, recovered herself by a great effort, and tugged at the pole to tow the boy and the table inshore.

Some more wreckage punted into the table from behind, and it came on her with a jerk; the pole slipped from her grasp, and she was down before she had time to see that the table was going to strike her. There was a wild cry from the boy, who felt himself lost, and then Pam made a great effort, and found herself clinging to the table leg, while the boy clung to her, his grip a frantic clutch that had more danger for her in it than anything else, as she knew full well. But she could not get free of him, and she would have to get him to the bank somehow, or be drowned with him. Then she noticed that some of the wreckage in front of her had been caught by something, and was piling into a barrier. It might not hold many minutes, but if it held long enough for her to reach the bank with the boy it was all that she asked of it. There was a noise in her ears as of someone calling, and she was so dazed by her great effort that she thought it was her mother reminding her of some neglected duty, as had so often been the case in those far-away days when duty had no meaning for her beyond an unpleasant something not always to be shirked.