Peter: A Novel of Which He is Not the Hero

by Francis Hopkinson Smith

It was but a question of minutes. He could already see the trees sway as the mad flood struck them, the smaller ones rebounding, the large ones toppling over. Then came a dull roar like that of a tram through a covered bridge, and then a great wall of yellow suds, boiling, curling, its surface covered with sticks, planks, shingles, floating barrels, parts of buildings, dashed itself against the smoothed earth slopes of his own “fill,” surged a third of its height, recoiled on itself, swirled furiously again, and then inch by inch rose toward the top. Should it plunge over the crest, the “fill” would melt away as a rising tide melts a sand fort, the work of months be destroyed, and his financial ruin be a certainty.

But the man who had crawled out on the shore end of the great cantilever bridge over the Ohio, and who had with his own hands practically set the last rebellious steel girder one hundred feet above the water level, had still some resources left. Grabbing a shovel from a railroad employee, he called to his men and began digging a trench on the tunnel end of the “fill” to form a temporary spillway should the top of the flood reach the crest of the road bed.

Fifty or more men sprang to his assistance with pick and shovel wherever one could stand and dig. The water had now reached within five feet of the top: the rise was slower, showing that the volume had lessened; the soakage, too, was helping, but the water still gained. The bottom of the trench, cut transversely across the road bed of the “fill,” out of which the dirt was still flying from scores of willing shovels, had reached the height of the flood line. It was wide enough and deep enough to take care of the slowly rising overflow and would relieve the pressure on the whole structure; but the danger was not there. What was to be feared was the scour on the down-stream—far side—slope of the “fill.” This also, was of loose earth: too great a gulch might mean total collapse.

To lessen this scour MacFarlane had looted a carload of plank switched on to a siding, and a gang of men in charge of Jack,—who had now reached his Chief's side,—were dragging them along the downstream slope to form sluices with which to break the force of the scour.

The top of the flood now poured into the mouth of the newly dug trench, biting huge mouthfuls of earth from its sides in its rush; spreading the reddish water fan-like over the down-stream slope: first into gullies; then a broad sluiceway that sunk out of sight in the soft earth; then crumblings, slidings of tons of sand and gravel, with here and there a bowlder washed clean; the men working like beavers,—here to free a rock, there to drive home a plank, the trench all the while deepening, widening—now a gulch ten feet across and as deep, now a canon through which surged a solid mass of frenzied water.

With the completion of the first row of planking MacFarlane took up a position where he could overlook all parts of the work. Every now and then his eyes would rest on a water-gauge which he had improvised from the handle of a pick; the rise and fall of the wet mark showing him both the danger and the safety lines. He seemed the least interested man in the group. Once in a while he would consult his watch, counting the seconds, only to return to the gauge.

That thousands of dollars' damage had so far been done did not seem to affect him in the least. Only when Jack would call out that everything so far was solid on the main “fill” did his calm face light up.

Tightening his wide slouch hat farther down on his head, he drew up the tops of his high-water boots and strode through the slush to the pick-handle. His wooden record showed that half an hour before the water had been rising at the rate of an inch every three minutes; that it had then taken six, and now required eight! He glanced at the sky; it had stopped raining and a light was breaking in the West.

Pocketing his watch he beckoned to Jack:

“The worst is over, Breen,” he said in a voice of perfect calmness—the tone of a doctor after feeling a patient's pulse. “Our culvert is doing its work and relieving the pressure. This water will be out of here by morning. Tell the foreman to keep those planks moving wherever they do any good, but they won't count much longer. You can see the difference already in the overflow. And now go up to the house and tell Ruth. She may not know we are all right and will be worrying.”