Almost always in summer the brook is fine. It pours a clear stream down over the rocks and kind of talks to us and sings, so that we like to be in the cave and listen to it. But sometimes in the spring of the year, when the snow on the mountain is melting and old winter is running away into the valley, and sometimes after very hard rains, the water roars over the falls and then dashes down through the gulch and over the rocks below, like some wild beast. At those times, it is a good place to keep away from, unless you have a dam or a cave that needs looking after.
"Get your hat, Pedro, and come on," said Skinny. "We want to see about the dam. If it washes out the water will fill our cave."
"And bring a shovel," added Bill. "We'd brought one, only your house is so much nearer."
"All right," I told them. "Whistle for Benny, while I'm getting it."
The four of us went up through the orchard and took the road around the hill to the top because the rain had made it too slippery to climb straight up. We knew by the roaring of the water, long before we came in sight, that Peck's Falls were going it for all they were worth.
When we finally, one after another, crept out on the ledge of Pulpit Rock, in front of the falls, the sight almost scared us. It was great, the way the water came down, fairly jumping from rock to rock, until with a final leap and roar, it plunged, all white and foaming, into an angry pool below; then dashed off, with a snarl, through the ravine.
"Gee-whillikens!" said Skinny. "Those are some falls, all right. How'd you like to go in swimming?"
"It would just about use a fellow up to go through there," I told him. "Boost me up so that I can look down at the cave."
"We'll boost Benny," he said. "He isn't so heavy."
The pulpit part reaches up several feet above the narrow ledge like a wall, and back of it there is a straight drop, a hundred feet or more down.