Under the Redwoods

“Ahem! If I ain’t taking you away from your studies, Mr. Sparrell, maybe you’ll be good enough to look here a minit;—but” (in affected politeness) “if I’m disturbing you I can come another time.”

Sparrell, placing the book he had been reading carefully under the counter, and advancing to Miss Delaware with a complete ignoring of her irony: “What can we do for you to-day, Miss Piper?”

Miss Delaware, with great suavity of manner, examining her memorandum-book: “I suppose it wouldn’t be shocking your delicate feelings too much to inform you that the canned lobster and oysters you sent us yesterday wasn’t fit for hogs?”

Sparrell (blandly): “They weren’t intended for them, Miss Piper. If we had known you were having company over from Red Gulch to dinner, we might have provided something more suitable for them. We have a fair quality of oil-cake and corn-cobs in stock, at reduced figures. But the canned provisions were for your own family.”

Miss Delaware (secretly pleased at this sarcastic allusion to her sister’s friends, but concealing her delight): “I admire to hear you talk that way, Mr. Sparrell; it’s better than minstrels or a circus. I suppose you get it outer that book,” indicating the concealed volume. “What do you call it?”

Sparrell (politely): “The First Principles of Geology.”

Miss Delaware, leaning sideways and curling her little fingers around her pink ear: “Did you say the first principles of ‘geology’ or ‘politeness’? You know I am so deaf; but, of course, it couldn’t be that.”

Sparrell (easily): “Oh no, you seem to have that in your hand”—pointing to Miss Delaware’s memorandum-book—“you were quoting from it when you came in.”

Miss Delaware, after an affected silence of deep resignation: “Well! it’s too bad folks can’t just spend their lives listenin’ to such elegant talk; I’d admire to do nothing else! But there’s my family up at Cottonwood—and they must eat. They’re that low that they expect me to waste my time getting food for ‘em here, instead of drinking in the First Principles of the Grocery.”

“Geology,” suggested Sparrell blandly. “The history of rock formation.”

“Geology,” accepted Miss Delaware apologetically; “the history of rocks, which is so necessary for knowing just how much sand you can put in the sugar. So I reckon I’ll leave my list here, and you can have the things toted to Cottonwood when you’ve got through with your First Principles.”

She tore out a list of her commissions from a page of her memorandum-book, leaped lightly from the counter, threw her brown braid from her left shoulder to its proper place down her back, shook out her skirts deliberately, and saying, “Thank you for a most improvin’ afternoon, Mr. Sparrell,” sailed demurely out of the store.

A few auditors of this narrative thought it inconsistent that a daughter of Judge Piper and a sister of the angelic host should put up with a mere clerk’s familiarity, but it was pointed out that “she gave him as good as he sent,” and the story was generally credited. But certainly no one ever dreamed that it pointed to any more precious confidences between them.

I think the secret burst upon the family, with other things, at the big picnic at Reservoir Canyon. This festivity had been arranged for weeks previously, and was undertaken chiefly by the “Red Gulch Contingent,” as we were called, as a slight return to the Piper family for their frequent hospitality. The Piper sisters were expected to bring nothing but their own personal graces and attend to the ministration of such viands and delicacies as the boys had profusely supplied.

The site selected was Reservoir Canyon, a beautiful, triangular valley with very steep sides, one of which was crowned by the immense reservoir of the Pioneer Ditch Company. The sheer flanks of the canyon descended in furrowed lines of vines and clinging bushes, like folds of falling skirts, until they broke again into flounces of spangled shrubbery over a broad level carpet of monkshood, mariposas, lupines, poppies, and daisies. Tempered and secluded from the sun’s rays by its lofty shadows, the delicious obscurity of the canyon was in sharp contrast to the fiery mountain trail that in the full glare of the noonday sky made its tortuous way down the hillside, like a stream of lava, to plunge suddenly into the valley and extinguish itself in its coolness as in a lake. The heavy odors of wild honeysuckle, syringa, and ceanothus that hung over it were lightened and freshened by the sharp spicing of pine and bay. The mountain breeze which sometimes shook the serrated tops of the large redwoods above with a chill from the remote snow peaks even in the heart of summer, never reached the little valley.

It seemed an ideal place for a picnic. Everybody was therefore astonished to hear that an objection was suddenly raised to this perfect site. They were still more astonished to know that the objector was the youngest Miss Piper! Pressed to give her reasons, she had replied that the locality was dangerous; that the reservoir placed upon the mountain, notoriously old and worn out, had been rendered more unsafe by false economy in unskillful and hasty repairs to satisfy speculating stockbrokers, and that it had lately shown signs of leakage and sapping of its outer walls; that, in the event of an outbreak, the little triangular valley, from which there was no outlet, would be instantly flooded. Asked still more pressingly to give her authority for these details, she at first hesitated, and then gave the name of Tom Sparrell.

The derision with which this statement was received by us all, as the opinion of a sedentary clerk, was quite natural and obvious, but not the anger which it excited in the breast of Judge Piper; for it was not generally known that the judge was the holder of a considerable number of shares in the Pioneer Ditch Company, and that large dividends had been lately kept up by a false economy of expenditure, to expedite a “sharp deal” in the stock, by which the judge and others could sell out of a failing company. Rather, it was believed, that the judge’s anger was due only to the discovery of Sparrell’s influence over his daughter and his interference with the social affairs of Cottonwood. It was said that there was a sharp scene between the youngest Miss Piper and the combined forces of the judge and the elder sisters, which ended in the former’s resolute refusal to attend the picnic at all if that site was selected.

As Delaware was known to be fearless even to the point of recklessness, and fond of gayety, her refusal only intensified the belief that she was merely “stickin’ up for Sparrell’s judgment” without any reference to her own personal safety or that of her sisters. The warning was laughed away; the opinion of Sparrell treated with ridicule as the dyspeptic and envious expression of an impractical man. It was pointed out that the reservoir had lasted a long time even in its alleged ruinous state; that only a miracle of coincidence could make it break down that particular afternoon of the picnic; that even if it did happen, there was no direct proof that it would seriously flood the valley, or at best add more than a spice of excitement to the affair. The “Red Gulch Contingent,” who WOULD be there, was quite as capable of taking care of the ladies, in case of any accident, as any lame crank who wouldn’t, but could only croak a warning to them from a distance. A few even wished something might happen that they might have an opportunity of showing their superior devotion; indeed, the prospect of carrying the half-submerged sisters, in a condition of helpless loveliness, in their arms to a place of safety was a fascinating possibility. The warning was conspicuously ineffective; everybody looked eagerly forward to the day and the unchanged locality; to the greatest hopefulness and anticipation was added the stirring of defiance, and when at last the appointed hour had arrived, the picnic party passed down the twisting mountain trail through the heat and glare in a fever of enthusiasm.

It was a pretty sight to view this sparkling procession—the girls cool and radiant in their white, blue, and yellow muslins and flying ribbons, the “Contingent” in its cleanest ducks, and blue and red flannel shirts, the judge white-waistcoated and panama-hatted, with a new dignity borrowed from the previous circumstances, and three or four impressive Chinamen bringing up the rear with hampers—as it at last debouched into Reservoir Canyon.

Here they dispersed themselves over the limited area, scarcely half an acre, with the freedom of escaped school children. They were secure in their woodland privacy. They were overlooked by no high road and its passing teams; they were safe from accidental intrusion from the settlement; indeed they went so far as to effect the exclusiveness of “clique.” At first they amused themselves by casting humorously defiant eyes at the long low Ditch Reservoir, which peeped over the green wall of the ridge, six hundred feet above them; at times they even simulated an exaggerated terror of it, and one recognized humorist declaimed a grotesque appeal to its forbearance, with delightful local allusions. Others pretended to discover near a woodman’s hut, among the belt of pines at the top of the descending trail, the peeping figure of the ridiculous and envious Sparrell. But all this was presently forgotten in the actual festivity. Small as was the range of the valley, it still allowed retreats during the dances for waiting couples among the convenient laurel and manzanita bushes which flounced the mountain side. After the dancing, old-fashioned children’s games were revived with great laughter and half-hearted and coy protests from the ladies; notably one pastime known as “I’m a-pinin’,” in which ingenious performance the victim was obliged to stand in the centre of a circle and publicly “pine” for a member of the opposite sex. Some hilarity was occasioned by the mischievous Miss “Georgy” Piper declaring, when it came to her turn, that she was “pinin’” for a look at the face of Tom Sparrell just now!

In this local trifling two hours passed, until the party sat down to the long-looked for repast. It was here that the health of Judge Piper was neatly proposed by the editor of the “Argus.” The judge responded with great dignity and some emotion. He reminded them that it had been his humble endeavor to promote harmony—that harmony so characteristic of American principles—in social as he had in political circles, and particularly among the strangely constituted yet purely American elements of frontier life. He accepted the present festivity with its overflowing hospitalities, not in recognition of himself—(“yes! yes!”)—nor of his family—(enthusiastic protests)—but of that American principle! If at one time it seemed probable that these festivities might be marred by the machinations of envy—(groans)—or that harmony interrupted by the importation of low-toned material interests—(groans)—he could say that, looking around him, he had never before felt—er—that—Here the judge stopped short, reeled slightly forward, caught at a camp-stool, recovered himself with an apologetic smile, and turned inquiringly to his neighbor.

A light laugh—instantly suppressed—at what was at first supposed to be the effect of the “overflowing hospitality” upon the speaker himself, went around the male circle until it suddenly appeared that half a dozen others had started to their feet at the same time, with white faces, and that one of the ladies had screamed.

“What is it?” everybody was asking with interrogatory smiles.

It was Judge Piper who replied:—

“A little shock of earthquake,” he said blandly; “a mere thrill! I think,” he added with a faint smile, “we may say that Nature herself has applauded our efforts in good old Californian fashion, and signified her assent. What are you saying, Fludder?”

“I was thinking, sir,” said Fludder deferentially, in a lower voice, “that if anything was wrong in the reservoir, this shock, you know, might”—

He was interrupted by a faint crashing and crackling sound, and looking up, beheld a good-sized boulder, evidently detached from some greater height, strike the upland plateau at the left of the trail and bound into the fringe of forest beside it. A slight cloud of dust marked its course, and then lazily floated away in mid air. But it had been watched agitatedly, and it was evident that that singular loss of nervous balance which is apt to affect all those who go through the slightest earthquake experience was felt by all. But some sense of humor, however, remained.

“Looks as if the water risks we took ain’t goin’ to cover earthquakes,” drawled Dick Frisney; “still that wasn’t a bad shot, if we only knew what they were aiming at.”

“Do be quiet,” said Virginia Piper, her cheeks pink with excitement. “Listen, can’t you? What’s that funny murmuring you hear now and then up there?”

“It’s only the snow-wind playin’ with the pines on the summit. You girls won’t allow anybody any fun but yourselves.”

But here a scream from “Georgy,” who, assisted by Captain Fairfax, had mounted a camp-stool at the mouth of the valley, attracted everybody’s attention. She was standing upright, with dilated eyes, staring at the top of the trail. “Look!” she said excitedly, “if the trail isn’t moving!”

Everybody faced in that direction. At the first glance it seemed indeed as if the trail was actually moving; wriggling and undulating its tortuous way down the mountain like a huge snake, only swollen to twice its usual size. But the second glance showed it to be no longer a trail but a channel of water, whose stream, lifted in a bore-like wall four or five feet high, was plunging down into the devoted valley.

For an instant they were unable to comprehend even the nature of the catastrophe. The reservoir was directly over their heads; the bursting of its wall they had imagined would naturally bring down the water in a dozen trickling streams or falls over the cliff above them and along the flanks of the mountain. But that its suddenly liberated volume should overflow the upland beyond and then descend in a pent-up flood by their own trail and their only avenue of escape, had been beyond their wildest fancy.

They met this smiting truth with that characteristic short laugh with which the American usually receives the blow of Fate or the unexpected—as if he recognized only the absurdity of the situation. Then they ran to the women, collected them together, and dragged them to vantages of fancied security among the bushes which flounced the long skirts of the mountain walls. But I leave this part of the description to the characteristic language of one of the party:—

“When the flood struck us, it did not seem to take any stock of us in particular, but laid itself out to ‘go for’ that picnic for all it was worth! It wiped it off the face of the earth in about twenty-five seconds! It first made a clean break from stem to stern, carrying everything along with it. The first thing I saw was old Judge Piper, puttin’ on his best licks to get away from a big can of strawberry ice cream that was trundling after him and trying to empty itself on his collar, whenever a bigger wave lifted it. He was followed by what was left of the brass band; the big drum just humpin’ itself to keep abreast o’ the ice cream, mixed up with camp-stools, music-stands, a few Chinamen, and then what they call in them big San Francisco processions ‘citizens generally.’ The hull thing swept up the canyon inside o’ thirty seconds. Then, what Captain Fairfax called ‘the reflex action in the laws o’ motion’ happened, and darned if the hull blamed procession didn’t sweep back again—this time all the heavy artillery, such as camp-kettles, lager beer kegs, bottles, glasses, and crockery that was left behind takin’ the lead now, and Judge Piper and that ice cream can bringin’ up the rear. As the jedge passed us the second time, we noticed that that ice cream can—hevin’ swallowed water—was kinder losing its wind, and we encouraged the old man by shoutin’ out, ‘Five to one on him!’ And then, you wouldn’t believe what followed. Why, darn my skin, when that ‘reflex’ met the current at the other end, it just swirled around again in what Captain Fairfax called the ‘centrifugal curve,’ and just went round and round the canyon like ez when yer washin’ the dirt out o’ a prospectin’ pan—every now and then washin’ some one of the boys that was in it, like scum, up ag’in the banks.

“We managed in this way to snake out the judge, jest ez he was sailin’ round on the home stretch, passin’ the quarter post two lengths ahead o’ the can. A good deal o’ the ice cream had washed away, but it took us ten minutes to shake the cracked ice and powdered salt out o’ the old man’s clothes, and warm him up again in the laurel bush where he was clinging. This sort o’ ‘Here we go round the mulberry bush’ kep’ on until most o’ the humans was got out, and only the furniture o’ the picnic was left in the race. Then it got kinder mixed up, and went sloshin’ round here and there, ez the water kep’ comin’ down by the trail. Then Lulu Piper, what I was holdin’ up all the time in a laurel bush, gets an idea, for all she was wet and draggled; and ez the things went bobbin’ round, she calls out the figures o’ a cotillon to ‘em. ‘Two camp-stools forward.’ ‘Sashay and back to your places.’ ‘Change partners.’ ‘Hands all round.’

“She was clear grit, you bet! And the joke caught on and the other girls jined in, and it kinder cheered ‘em, for they was wantin’ it. Then Fludder allowed to pacify ‘em by sayin’ he just figured up the size o’ the reservoir and the size o’ the canyon, and he kalkilated that the cube was about ekal, and the canyon couldn’t flood any more. And then Lulu—who was peart as a jay and couldn’t be fooled—speaks up and says, ‘What’s the matter with the ditch, Dick?’

“Lord! then we knew that she knew the worst; for of course all the water in the ditch itself—fifty miles of it!—was drainin’ now into that reservoir and was bound to come down to the canyon.”

It was at this point that the situation became really desperate, for they had now crawled up the steep sides as far as the bushes afforded foothold, and the water was still rising. The chatter of the girls ceased, there were long silences, in which the men discussed the wildest plans, and proposed to tear their shirts into strips to make ropes to support the girls by sticks driven into the mountain side. It was in one of those intervals that the distinct strokes of a woodman’s axe were heard high on the upland at the point where the trail descended to the canyon. Every ear was alert, but only those on one side of the canyon could get a fair view of the spot. This was the good fortune of Captain Fairfax and Georgy Piper, who had climbed to the highest bush on that side, and were now standing up, gazing excitedly in that direction.

“Some one is cutting down a tree at the head of the trail,” shouted Fairfax. The response and joyful explanation, “for a dam across the trail,” was on everybody’s lips at the same time.

But the strokes of the axe were slow and painfully intermittent. Impatience burst out.

“Yell to him to hurry up! Why haven’t they brought two men?”

“It’s only one man,” shouted the captain, “and he seems to be a cripple. By Jiminy!—it is—yes!—it’s Tom Sparrell!”

There was a dead silence. Then, I grieve to say, shame and its twin brother rage took possession of their weak humanity. Oh, yes! It was all of a piece! Why in the name of Folly hadn’t he sent for an able-bodied man. Were they to be drowned through his cranky obstinacy?

The blows still went on slowly. Presently, however, they seemed to alternate with other blows—but alas! they were slower, and if possible feebler!

“Have they got another cripple to work?” roared the Contingent in one furious voice.

“No—it’s a woman—a little one—yes! a girl. Hello! Why, sure as you live, it’s Delaware!”

A spontaneous cheer burst from the Contingent, partly as a rebuke to Sparrell, I think, partly from some shame over their previous rage. He could take it as he liked.

Still the blows went on distressingly slow. The girls were hoisted on the men’s shoulders; the men were half submerged. Then there was a painful pause; then a crumbling crash. Another cheer went up from the canyon.

“It’s down! straight across the trail,” shouted Fairfax, “and a part of the bank on the top of it.”

There was another moment of suspense. Would it hold or be carried away by the momentum of the flood? It held! In a few moments Fairfax again gave voice to the cheering news that the flow had stopped and the submerged trail was reappearing. In twenty minutes it was clear—a muddy river bed, but possible of ascent! Of course there was no diminution of the water in the canyon, which had no outlet, yet it now was possible for the party to swing from bush to bush along the mountain side until the foot of the trail—no longer an opposing one—was reached. There were some missteps and mishaps,—flounderings in the water, and some dangerous rescues,—but in half an hour the whole concourse stood upon the trail and commenced the ascent. It was a slow, difficult, and lugubrious procession—I fear not the best-tempered one, now that the stimulus of danger and chivalry was past. When they reached the dam made by the fallen tree, although they were obliged to make a long detour to avoid its steep sides, they could see how successfully it had diverted the current to a declivity on the other side.

But strangely enough they were greeted by nothing else! Sparrell and the youngest Miss Piper were gone; and when they at last reached the highroad, they were astounded to hear from a passing teamster that no one in the settlement knew anything of the disaster!

This was the last drop in their cup of bitterness! They who had expected that the settlement was waiting breathlessly for their rescue, who anticipated that they would be welcomed as heroes, were obliged to meet the ill-concealed amusement of passengers and friends at their dishevelled and bedraggled appearance, which suggested only the blundering mishaps of an ordinary summer outing! “Boatin’ in the reservoir, and fell in?” “Playing at canal-boat in the Ditch?” were some of the cheerful hypotheses. The fleeting sense of gratitude they had felt for their deliverers was dissipated by the time they had reached their homes, and their rancor increased by the information that when the earthquake occurred Mr. Tom Sparrell and Miss Delaware were enjoying a “pasear” in the forest—he having a half-holiday by virtue of the festival—and that the earthquake had revived his fears of a catastrophe. The two had procured axes in the woodman’s hut and did what they thought was necessary to relieve the situation of the picnickers. But the very modesty of this account of their own performance had the effect of belittling the catastrophe itself, and the picnickers’ report of their exceeding peril was received with incredulous laughter.

For the first time in the history of Red Gulch there was a serious division between the Piper family, supported by the Contingent, and the rest of the settlement. Tom Sparrell’s warning was remembered by the latter, and the ingratitude of the picnickers to their rescuers commented upon; the actual calamity to the reservoir was more or less attributed to the imprudent and reckless contiguity of the revelers on that day, and there were not wanting those who referred the accident itself to the machinations of the scheming Ditch Director Piper!

It was said that there was a stormy scene in the Piper household that evening. The judge had demanded that Delaware should break off her acquaintance with Sparrell, and she had refused; the judge had demanded of Sparrell’s employer that he should discharge him, and had been met with the astounding information that Sparrell was already a silent partner in the concern. At this revelation Judge Piper was alarmed; while he might object to a clerk who could not support a wife, as a consistent democrat he could not oppose a fairly prosperous tradesman. A final appeal was made to Delaware; she was implored to consider the situation of her sisters, who had all made more ambitious marriages or were about to make them. Why should she now degrade the family by marrying a country storekeeper?

It is said that here the youngest Miss Piper made a memorable reply, and a revelation the truth of which was never gainsaid:—

“You all wanter know why I’m going to marry Tom Sparrell?” she queried, standing up and facing the whole family circle.