Jerome, A Poor Man Part 58

The mighty body of snow, pierced in a thousand places by the rain as by liquid fingers, settled with inconceivable rapidity. Great drifts which had slanted to the tops of north windows twelve hours before were almost gone. The wide snow-levels of the fields were all honey-combed and glistening here and there with pools. The trees dripped with clots of melting snow, there were avalanches from the village roofs, and even in the houses was heard the roar of the brook. It was, however, no longer a brook, not even a river, but a torrent. It over spread its banks on either side. Forest trees stood knee-deep in it, their branches swept it. At three o'clock Jerome's mill was surrounded, though on one side by only a rippling shallow of water. He had plenty of helpers all day; for if his dam and mill went, there was danger to the Main Street bridge. Now they had all taken advantage of the last firm footing, and left the mill. They had joined a watching group on a rise of ground beyond the flood. The rain was slacking somewhat, and half the male portion of the village seemed a.s.sembled, watching for the possible destruction of the mill.

Now and then came a hoa.r.s.e shout across the swelling water to Jerome.

He alone remained in his mill, standing by the great door that overlooked the dam and the falls. He was high above it, but the spray wet his face.

The great yellow flood came leaping tumultuously over the dam, and rebounding in wild fountains of spray. Trees came with it, and joists--a bridge somewhere above had gone. Strange, uncanny wreckage, which could not be defined, bobbed on the torrent, and took the plunge of annihilation over the dam. Every now and then came a cry and a groan of doubt from the watchers, who thought this or that might be a drowned man.

Besides the thundering rush of the water there were other sounds, which Jerome seemed to hear with all his nervous system. The mill hummed with awful musical vibrations, it strained and creaked like a s.h.i.+p at sea.

The hoa.r.s.e shouts from the sh.o.r.e for him to leave the mill were redoubled, but he paid no heed. He was on the other side, and knew nothing of a sudden commotion among the people when Jake Noyes came das.h.i.+ng through the trees and calling for Doctor Prescott, who had joined them some half hour before.

"Come quick, for G.o.d's sake!" he shouted; "you're wanted on the other side of the brook, and the bridge will be gone, and you'll have to go ten miles round. Colonel Lamson is down with apoplexy!"

Jerome did not know when the doctor followed Noyes hurriedly out to the road where his team was waiting, and Squire Eben Merritt went at a run after them, shouting back, "Don't let that boy stay in that mill too long; see to it, some of you."

There came a great barn-roof down-stream, followed by a tossing wake of hay and straw. The crowd on sh.o.r.e groaned. It broke when it pa.s.sed the falls, and so the danger to the bridge below was averted, but a heavy beam slewed sidewise as it pa.s.sed the mill, and struck it. The mill quivered in every beam, and the floor canted like the deck of a vessel. Martin Cheeseman rushed in and caught Jerome roughly by the arm. "For G.o.d's sake, what ye up to?" he shouted above the roar of the water, "Come along with ye. She's goin'!"

The old man had a rope tied to his middle; Jerome followed him, unresistingly, and they crossed, almost waist-deep and in danger of being swept from their foothold by the current. Cheeseman kept tight hold of Jerome's arm. "Bear up," he said, in a hoa.r.s.e whisper, as they struggled out of the water; "life's more'n a mill."

"It's more than a mill that's going down," replied Jerome, in a dull monotone which Cheeseman did not hear. There were plenty of out-stretched hands to help them to the sh.o.r.e; the men pressed around with rude sympathy.

"It's darned hard luck," one and another said, with the defiant emphasis of an oath.

Then they turned from Jerome and riveted their attention upon the mill, which swayed visibly. Jerome stood apart, his back turned, looking away into the depths of the dripping woods. Cheeseman came up and clapped his shoulder hard. "Don't ye want to see it go?" he cried. "It's a sight. Might as well get all ye can out of it."

Jerome shook his head.

"Ye'd better. I tell ye, it's a sight. I've seen three go in my lifetime, an' one of 'em was my own. Lord, I looked on with the rest!

Might as well get all the fun you can out of your own funeral. Hullo!

There--there goes the dam, an'--there goes the mill!"

There was a wild chorus of shouts and groans. Jerome's mill went reeling down-stream, but he did not see it. He had heard the new spouting roar of water and the crash, and knew what it meant, but look he would not.

"Ye missed it," said Cheeseman.

Some of the men came up and wrung his hand hurriedly, then were off with the crowd to see the Main Street bridge go. Jerome sat down weakly on a pile of sodden logs, which the flood had not reached.

Cheeseman stared at him. "What on airth are you settin' down there for?" he asked.

"I'm going, pretty soon," Jerome replied.

"You'll catch your death, settin' there in those wet clothes. Come, git up and go home."

Jerome did not stir; his white face was set straight ahead; he muttered something which the other could not hear. Cheeseman looked at him perplexedly. He laid hold of his shoulder and shook him again, and ordered him angrily, with no avail; then set off himself. He was old, and the chill of his wet clothes was stealing through him.

Not long afterwards Jerome went down the road towards home. Half way there he met a hurrying man, belated for the tragic drama on the village stage.

"Hullo!" he called, excitedly. "Your mill gone?"

"Yes."

"Dam gone?"

"Yes."

"Gos.h.!.+ Bridge gone?"

"Don't know."

"Gos.h.!.+ if I ain't quick, I'll miss the whole show," cried the man, with a spurt ahead; but, after all, he stopped a moment and looked back curiously at Jerome plodding down the flooded road, his weary figure bent stiffly, with the slant of his own dejectedness, athwart the pelting slant of the storm.

Chapter x.x.xVI

Jerome, when his mill went down, felt that his dearest hope in life went with it. His fighting spirit did not fail him; he had not the least inclination to settle back for the buffets of fate; but the combat henceforth would be for honor only, not victory. He felt that his defeats had established themselves in an endless ratio to his efforts.

"I shall go to work again, and save up money for a new mill. I shall build it after a long while; but something will always happen to put me back, and I shall never marry her," he told himself.

Had he the money with which he had made good his father's loss, he could have rebuilt in a short time, but he did not consider the possibility of taking that and, perhaps, supplementing it by a loan from his father. "It would break the old man's heart to touch his money," he said, "and the mill might go again, and it would all be lost."

On the morning after the destruction of his mill, Squire Eben Merritt came to Jerome's door, and gave him a daintily folded little note.

"Lucina sent this to you," he said, and eyed him with a sort of sad keenness as he took it and thanked him in a bewildered fas.h.i.+on, his haggard face reddening.

The Squire himself looked as if he had pa.s.sed a sleepless night, his fresh color had faded, his face was elongated. "I'm sorry enough about your loss, my boy," he said, "but I can't say as much as I might, or feel as much as I might, if my old friend hadn't gone down in--a deeper flood." The Squire's voice broke. Jerome looked away from his working face. He had scarcely, in his own selfishness of loss, grasped the news of Colonel Lamson's death, which had taken place before the bridge went down and before the doctor arrived. He muttered something vaguely sympathetic in response. Lucina's little letter seemed to burn his fingers.

The Squire dashed his hand across his eyes, coughed hard, then glanced at the letter. "Lucina has been talking to her mother," he said, abruptly. "It seems the--Colonel Lamson had told her something that you said to him. We didn't know how matters stood. By-and-by you and I will have a talk. Don't be too down-hearted over the mill--there's more than one way out of that difficulty. In the meantime, there's her letter--I've read it. She's cried all night because your d.a.m.ned mill has gone, and looks sick enough to call the doctor this morning, and, by the Lord Harry! sir, you can think yourself a lucky fellow!" With that the Squire shook his head fiercely and strode down the path with bowed shoulders. Jerome went up-stairs with his letter.

"What did the Squire want?" his mother called, but he did not heed her.

It was his first letter from Lucina. He opened it and read; there were only a few delicately formed lines, but for him they were as finely cut, with all possible lights of meaning, as a diamond:

"Dear Friend" [wrote Lucina],--"I beg you to accept my sympathy in the disaster which has befallen your property, and I implore you not to be disheartened, and not to consider me unmaidenly for signing myself your ever faithful and constant friend, through all the joys or vicissitudes of life.

"Lucina Merritt."

This letter, modelled after the fas.h.i.+on which Lucina had learned at school, whereby she bound and laced over with set words and phrases, as with a species of emotional stays, her love and pity, not considering it decorous to give them full breath, filled Jerome with happiness and despair. He understood that Colonel Lamson had betrayed him, that Lucina, all unasked, had bound herself in love and faithfulness to him through all his failing efforts.

"I won't have it--I won't have it!" he muttered, fiercely, but he kissed the little letter with exulting rapture. "I've got this much, anyhow," he thought.

He wondered if he should answer it. How could he refuse her dear constancy and affection, yet how could he accept it? He had no hope of marrying her, he reasoned that it would be better for her should he even repulse her rudely. It would be like s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g the rack for his own body to do that, but he declared to himself that he ought.

"She'll never marry at all, if she waits for you; it'll hinder her looking at somebody else; she'll be an old maid, she'll be all alone in the world, with no husband or children, and you know it," he told himself, with a kind of mental squaring of his own fists in his face.

All the time, with that curious, dogmatic selfishness which has sometimes its roots in unselfishness itself, he never considered the effect upon poor Lucina of the repulse of her love and constancy.

Such was his ardor for unselfishness that, in its pursuit, he would have made all others selfish nor cared.

That day the sun shone in a bright, windy sky. The snow was nearly gone, the brook still leaped in a furious torrent, but there was no more danger from it. The waters were, in fact, receding slowly.

Jerome worked all day near the ruinous site of his mill, and Martin Cheeseman with him. He had a quant.i.ty of logs and lumber, which had escaped the flood, to care for. Cheeseman inquired if he was going to rebuild the mill.