After a while, he went back home. It was such fun to splash his way up the stream. He got thoroughly soaked. When he got home and dry, he helped his father make one of the closets larger. His father chipped and dug at the rock wall, and Baartock swept and picked-up, and carried all of the trash outside in a bucket. They worked most of the afternoon. Dinner was a simple meal. It had been too wet to go get anything, so it was mostly left-overs.
The rain stopped just after dinnertime, and Baartock went out to look around. It was getting dark, but he walked up to his bridge. He was worried about the spots his father had pointed out. When he got there, his bridge was all right. An opossum was hiding under the arch, trying to stay dry, and it growled at him. It wanted to be left alone and Baartock was able to see what he wanted to, without chasing it off.
Going home in the dark, he slipped and fell into the stream a couple of times. He was glad to sit by the fire and get dry, now that he knew that his bridge was safe.
The nest morning it wasn't raining, though there were still a lot of clouds overhead. But they were blowing away, and it might be sunny later. Baartock walked down to wait for the bus. He went down the path beside the stream. Even though the rain had stopped the night before, the stream was just as full as it had been when it was raining. It was still rushing and splashing its way down the hill.
Baartock couldn't get all the way to the road. The water had risen even higher. It wasn't a pool, it was a lake. The road was completely under water. It was almost as deep as he was tall. During the night, two of the trees beside the stream had fallen over, and were lying across the road. The holes, where the roots had been were filled with water. And there was still more water coming down the stream. He walked along the edge of water for a long way. Finally, near the driveway to the 'old Howard house', there was no more water covering the road.
Baartock played by the side of this new lake for a while, skipping stones. When he grew tired of that, he went up the driveway, and home. He left his lunch bag, and went up to check on his bridge again. The opossum was gone, but there was still too much water for him to work on his bridge, and he went back home.
His father had decided that he couldn't go to work again, so he was sleeping late. His mother was busy in the kitchen, so Baartock got out his pencil box and some worksheets he had brought home from school and sat near the mouth of the cave and did them again.
Chapter 16
The sun started to come through the clouds, and Baartock moved his stool outside the cave. He was just about to get back to work, when he heard someone coming up the hill. He put his pencil box and worksheets on the stool and went inside to tell his mother. They were just coming out of the cave when Mrs. Jackson and Mrs. Stogbuchner came into the clearing.