“I’ll walk down through the garden and see how the onions and the ducks are getting on,” she said to herself. “It’s not going to rain so very soon.”
She knew at heart that this was not true, that the tenseness of the air meant that the storm must break any moment, and that the boiling clouds just becoming visible over the edge of the hill contained thunder and lightning and a deluge of rain. Nevertheless she pressed on, anxious to be of service to her friend, thinking that there might be some young chickens to rescue or some wayward ducklings to drive in out of the storm. Reaching the gate of the poultry yard she found that the motherly old hens had been as thoughtful as she, for they had long since hustled their young charges under shelter, leaving only the old red cock to strut about the place and cast his eye upward at the threatening clouds. She was leaning over the gate, laughing at his absurd dignity, when the whole sky above her was streaked with a blinding flash of light and the very hill seemed to rock under the following thunder. The big drops began to fall, faster and faster, until a white sheet of rain swept across the garden almost before she could seek refuge in the open door of the tool shed.
How it poured, so that trickling streams were running down the paths and pools were collecting before her very feet! What was it doing to the garden laid out on the long slope, all that flood of water rushing from the top of the hill to the valley below? A good many times she had heard Michael comment to Miss Miranda on just such a possibility.
“’Tis a good bit of ground you have, but steeper by far than it should be. In grass it was well enough, but in garden stuff, I’m not so certain. A hard rain on this hillside would cut the rows and wash out the young plants something cruel. I wish it were more of a level.”
Just what he had dreaded was evidently happening now. Rain and wind rushed furiously over the garden, flattening the peas, tearing at the furrows, plowing deep trenches where rivulets of water went streaming down. Once in a quieter shower she had seen Michael working with a hoe, opening proper channels to carry off the rain, making little ditches here and there where the water could flow away without doing harm. It was plain that if the garden was to be saved from the ravages of this seasonable storm, some such thing must be done now.
“Well,” she thought determinedly, “I wasn’t of much use in the workshop, but I can do something here at least.”
It had rankled a little for some days after that other emergency, to remember that it was David and not herself, who had been of service.
She took a hoe from behind the door and ran out into the rain. In a moment her hat was blown away, her clothes were soaked and water was streaming down her face. She struggled valiantly with the torrents that were pouring through the garden. At first she was slow and awkward, but presently she gained skill by experiment so that she could open channels where they were most needed and could forestall the cutting of cruel gashes all across the rows of the best vegetables. Energy and good will she had in plenty and with abundance of these she toiled, wet, muddy, slipping in the crumbling soil, thinking sometimes that she was beaten but still fighting desperately to rescue what she could. At last slowly, very slowly, the struggle turned from a losing battle to a winning one, the proper ditches were made and maintained, the rain softened from a deluge to a quiet shower, the water flowed harmlessly away between the corn and the cabbages and Betsey stopped to draw breath and survey what she had done. The peas and onions showed unbroken rows, the beans had been little damaged, the bulk of the garden’s crop had been saved. It was only then that she realized how excited she had been and how wet and weary she was. She jumped with startled suddenness when a voice spoke behind her.
“You’ve done that none so bad,” it said slowly. “There’s not many that’s so willing to keep a garden from being ruined by the rain and fewer yet would have the wits to know how.”
She turned to see Michael Martin sitting on an upturned bucket, smoking calmly away at his stump of a black pipe, rain dripping from the rim of his battered hat.