Ted and the Telephone

by Sara Ware Bassett

"I can't have two boys sick," declared Mr. Clarence Fernald, "and as you have not been exposed to the disease there is no sense in our thrusting you into its midst. Plenty of wood will keep your fireplace blazing and as the weather is comparatively mild I fancy you can contrive to be comfortable. We will connect the telephone so you won't be lonely and so you can talk with Laurie every day. The doctor says he will soon be well again and after the house has been fumigated you can come back to Pine Lea."

Accordingly, Ted was once more ensconced in the little hut and how good it seemed to be again in that familiar haunt only he realized. Before the first day was over, he felt as if he had never been away. Pine Lea might boast its conservatories, its sun parlors, its tiled baths, its luxuries of every sort; they all faded into nothingness beside the freedom and peace of the tiny shack at the river's margin.

Meanwhile, with the gradual approach of spring, the sun mounted higher and the great snow drifts settled and began to disappear. Already the ice in the stream was breaking up and the turbid yellow waters went rushing along, carrying with them whirling blocks of snow. As the torrent swept past, it flooded the meadows and piled up against the dam opposite the factories great frozen, jagged masses of ice which ground and crashed against one another, so that the sounds could be distinctly heard within the mills. At some points these miniature icebergs blocked the falls and held the waters in check until, instead of cascading over the dam, they spread inland, inundating the shores. The float before Ted's door was covered and at night, when all was still and his windows open, he could hear the roaring of the stream, and the impact of the bumping ice as it sped along. Daily, as the snows on the far distant hillsides near the river's source melted, the flood increased and poured down in an ever rising tide its seething waters.

Yet notwithstanding the fact that each day saw the stream higher, no one experienced any actual anxiety from the conditions, although everybody granted they were abnormal. Of course, there was more ice in the river than there had been for many years. Even Grandfather Fernald, who had lived in the vicinity for close on to half a century, could not recall ever having witnessed such a spring freshet; nor did he deny that the weight of ice and water against the dam must be tremendous. However, the structure was strong and there was no question of its ability to hold, even though this chaos of grinding ice-cakes boomed against it with defiant reverberation.

In spite of the conditions, Ted felt no nervousness about remaining by himself in the shack and perhaps every premonition of evil might have escaped him had he not been awakened one morning very early by a ripple of lapping water that seemed near at hand. Sleepily he opened his eyes and looked about him. The floor of the hut was wet and through the crack beneath the door a thread of muddy water was steadily seeping. In an instant he was on his feet and as he stood looking about him in bewilderment he heard the roar of the river and detected in the sound a threatening intonation that had not been there on the previous day. He hurried to the window and stared out into the grayness of the dawn. The scene that confronted him chilled his blood. The river had risen unbelievably during the night. Not only were the little bushes along the shore entirely submerged but many of the pines standing upon higher ground were also under water.

As he threw on his clothes, he tried to decide whether there was anything he ought to do. Would it be well to call up the Fernalds, or telephone to the mills, or to the village, and give warning of the conditions? It was barely four o'clock and the first streaks of light were but just appearing. Nevertheless, there must be persons who were awake and as alert as he to the transformation the darkness had wrought. Moreover, perhaps there was no actual danger, and should this prove to be the case, how absurd he would feel to arouse people at daybreak for a mere nothing. It was while he paused there indecisively that a sight met his eye which spurred hesitancy to immediate action. Around the bend far up the stream came sweeping a tangle of wreckage—trees, and brush, and floating timber—and swirling along in its wake was a small lean-to which he recognized as one that had stood on the bank of the river at Melton, the village located five miles above Freeman's Falls. If the water were high enough to carry away this building, it must indeed have risen to a menacing height and there was not a moment to be lost.

He rushed to the telephone and called up Mr. Clarence Fernald who replied to his summons in irritable, half-dazed fashion.

"Is there any way of lifting the water gates at the mills?" asked Ted breathlessly. "The river has risen so high that it is sweeping away trees and even some of the smaller houses from the Melton shore. If the debris piles up against the dam, the pressure may be more than the thing can stand. Besides, the water will spread and flood both Aldercliffe and Pine Lea. I thought I'd better tell you."

Mr. Fernald was not dazed now; he was broad awake.

"Where are you?" inquired he sharply.