THE HEROINE OF HICKORY BEND

New Zealand Tablet, 4 June 1914, Page 9

THE HEROINE OF HICKORY BEND

' You’ve never been and got back already !’ ‘Yes, I have. And here’s the pattern, but Mrs. Ridgely says she doesn’t like the sleeve. And so she sent you another sleeve from one of Mary Anne’s dresses.’ Miss Susan Parke looked severely at her niece through her spectacles. ‘ It’s a good mile to Mrs. Ridgely’s. ' If you’ve been there and back in half an hour, besides waiting for Mrs. Ridgely to hunt up her patternsshe never knows where to put her hand on anything, Mrs. Ridgely —it’s easy to guess how you went.’ Becky laughed. She was not a pretty girl, but her freckled face with the good-humored mouth and cheeks aglow with vigorous health, had a charm not always associated with beauty. She slipped an arm about Aunt Susan’s waist, and hugged her reassuringly. . Confess-it’s lovely to have the pattern in half an hour, instead of waiting an hour and a half.’ ‘ I don’t know what the world is coming to, I’m sure,’ said Aunt Susan, who lived in a state of constant apprehension regarding the future of the race to which she belonged." Aunt Susan was emphatically a person who believed in the good old times. Vainly had she tried to impress and repress Becky by animated descriptions of the great-grandmother, whose oil portrait.

hanging in the front parlor, .was ; the one cherished family heirloom. 5 4 Such a waist,’ Aunt Susan would say impressively,. 4 I have often heard her tell that at the time of her marriage, your great-grandfather could span it with his -two hands.’ , .V . Becky always cast a reflective glance at the mirror at this point. 4 But, Aunt Susan, I should think it would have been very inconvenient when it came to breathing.’ 4 From her childhood,’ Aunt Susan continued, magnificently disregarding the interruption, 4 her complexion was guarded with the utmost care. She wore a thick veil even to school, and I have heard' her say that her mother would as readily have allowed her daughters to use improper language as to tan or freckle.’ 4, P00r things,’ said Becky, irreverently. And as Aunt Susan looked at her aghast she persisted : 4 Honestly, Auntie, nobody could have any fun wearing a veil.’ 4 When your Great-grandmother Parke was married,’ said Aunt Susan, 4 she was considered the most beautiful woman in Doan county. Of course,’ she added, with withering sarcasm, 4 some of her descendants may prefer riding bicycles, and other tomboy pursuits to mere beauty and womanliness. Standards change so. I really don’t know,’ concluded Aunt Susan, falling back on her favorite perplexity, 4 what the world is coming to.’ It was the bicycle that Aunt Susan found it the hardest to overlook. Bringing up a solitary girl in- a family of boys makes it difficult to conform to such standards as were responsible for the manifold perfections of Great-grandmother Parke. Becky went fishing with the boys in summer and skating in winter. She developed a most unfeminine dislike for tears, and aroused Aunt Susan’s apprehensions, at a very early age, by pounding -her finger with a hammer, and then saying it didn’t hurt. She loved baseball better than piano practice, and knew very much more about incurves than she did about the key of five flats. Greatgrandmother Parke had played the harp. Her picture in the parlor represented her manipulating that instrument, with beautifully tapering white hands. From her point of vantage on the wall, she looked benignly down on her great-granddaughter hammering out scales with stout brown fingers, and always with, a watchful eye on the hourglass. But the skating and fishing and baseball, bad as they were, in Aunt Susan’s estimation, all faded into insignificance beside Becky’s fondness for the bicycle. In the small town where Becky’s father was the only physician the bicycle had never come into general favor for the use of girls and women. But when the-doctor added enough to Tom’s earnings one summer to enable him to buy a bicycle, Becky learned to ride, as a matter of course, took her tumbles without complaint, and longed for a bicycle of her own. But there Aunt Susan put her foot down. It was bad enough for Becky to ride Tom’s wheel, but that was nothing compared to the official sanction of such impropriety implied in giving her a wheel of her own. The doctor thought his sister over-particular, yet he respected her objections, and turned a deaf ear to his daughter’s, coaxing. And all that was left for Becky was to endeavor to conquer Aunt Susan prejudice by performing necessary errands in incredibly few moments, and similar pieces of strategy. Had she known just how she was to gain her point at last, it is very sure she would have preferred to surrender all thought of the bicycle. One spring afternoon Becky found herself in charge of the establishment, a rather unusual responsibility. Aunt Susan, was’spending, the afternoon with an old friend who lived on the rise of ground above the valley where the most of the houses of the village nestled. he boys were scattered in various enterprises. Becky s father had announced at the dinner table that he meant to drive up- to the dam, . which five miles < above the town held back in a huge reservoir the water supply ot the nearest large city. l

■ * Donaldson thinks the pressure is too heavy, since the rains/ said Becky’s father as he ate his dinner. ‘He’s .worried about the dam, though that doesn’t mean much, for Donaldson always sees the black side. However,’-1 concluded the doctor cheerfully, ‘ I’ll feel better for looking it over myself. When a man pitches camp in front of a cage of wild animals, he must be sure that the bars are good and strong.’ ‘ Is it a circus?’ asked Becky’s little brother. Bob, pricking up his ears and the doctor laughed, and acknowledged that it was something of the sort. And Bob’s imagination having been aroused, nothing would do but that he should accompany his father. The two drove away soon after dinner, the doctor looking out of the buggy to tell Becky what to say in case Mrs. Sharpe should call up about Johnny’s cough. The afternoon passed uneventfully enough till about 4 o’clock. Two or three times the telephone rang, apparently causing his mother anxiety, but old Mrs. Wright wanted more of her rheumatism medicine, and Mrs. Clifford asked that the doctor should run in and take a look at the baby. Becky wrote these calls on the doctor’s slate, and a moment later was called to answer the door bell.

The woman at the door wore a sunbonnet, and led a barefooted child by the hand. ‘ One of the Benders,’ Becky said to herself. Two miles below the village, the streams curved abruptly to the east, and in the angle of this elbow huddled a little settlement of shabby bouses, known as Hickory Bend. There was something distinctive about the inhabitants of Hickory Bend, the ‘ Benders,’ as Becky irreverently christened them. The women were, all lank, -the men slouched, the most of the children - were ragged. A sorry little blot on the greenness and beauty of the spring world was Hickory Bend. ‘Doctor home?’ The woman’s voice was shrill. The face looking out of the sunbonnet was faded and apathetic.

V ‘No, he won’t be home till supper time.’ The woman sighed. * It’s a good bit of a walk •from • the Bend here,’ she complained. ‘My old man thought maybe somebody’d give me a lift along the road, but there warn’t but two waggons passed me, and they was goin’ the other way.’ ‘Another tims you’d better telephone and see if the doctor’s here,’ Becky/began thoughtlessly. The woman uttered a short, disconcerting laugh. ‘Telephone!’ she said. ‘Bless you, there ain’t no telephone at Hickory Bend. If you want a doctor, you’ve got to hoof it and take your chances.’ * You’d better sit and rest a while,’ Becky suggested, her hospitable instincts aroused by the woman's look of weariness. She gave the unprepossessing pair chairs on the shaded porch, and brought out two glasses of clear, cold water. The two drank thirstily, and the mother, with a sudden stirring of responsibility in the matter of training her offspring, told the child angrily to say thank you to the young lady. Then the telephone called Becky away, and when she re-

•. .• , ; / ' turned, the two had started on their homeward journey: two plodding, unlovely figures set against the greenness of the spring afternoon. • v ; In the aosence of society Becky found herself suddenly sleepy. She flung herself down on. the well-worn couch in the doctor’s office, where her father caught many a brief nap in preparation for an all-night vigil. With her healthy nerves and sound body, Becky could fall asleep as promptly as a kitten. . In sixty seconds by the clock she was breathing regularly, and her nap had lasted a good, hour when it was interrupted by Hie lelenhune bell.

Decay opened her eyes drowsily, tried to remember whether it was day or night, and jumped all at once, as a full realisation of her responsibilities dawned upon her. She took down the receiver, trying to recall just what her father had said about Johnny Sharp’s cough. A woman’s voice, a hoarse, intense voice, was shouting something incredible in her ears. ‘ The clam’s broke. The water’s coming down on you. Bun for the hills!’ Becky put the receiver back on the hook, stood for a moment in a daze, and then ran for the door. Her mind was mechanically calling the roll of the household. The older boys had gone off hunting that afternoon. That would take them to the highlands, and Aunt Susan’s friend, too, lived on the hill. Bob was with her father. She must trust her father to save them both.

in the streets people were running towards the hills. Mothers carried babies in their arms. Older children dragged along the younger ones. In the distance Becky could see old Mrs. Wright making for the high land at a rate of speed that did not suggest rheumatism. It was clear that the warning which had come to her was general. Somewhere an operator was sticking to her post, sending the message into home after home, giving the people time to save their lives before the flood was upon them. All this flashed through Becky’s mind on her way from the front porch to the gate. And then like a picture thrown on a screen, she saw a woman and a child plodding on the way to Hickory Bend, where there was no telephone. How was Hickory Bend to bo warned ? She looked back toward the house, and the handle-bars of Tom’s bicycle flashed in the afternoon sunlight. It was Becky’s answer. A moment later she was flying down the road, everything but time in her favor. The wind was at her back. The sandy soil had drunk in the springrains and was thirsty again. -Down the dry, sloping road she flew like the wind, every sense alert for some sound of her merciless pursuer. Already her heart was pounding, and her throat was dry. The thought of self-preservation, forgotten for the moment, came back insistently. How far' away the hills looked, the hills where there was safety. On ahead she saw two figures resting by the roadside, and even at that distance recognised the stoop of the woman’s shoulders and the listless droop of the

child. She crouched over the handle-bars, and the wheel leaped ahead like a desperate creature, fleeing for its life. Before she was near enough to be heard, Becky had begun to scream: Run Quick ! Run to the hills! The dam lias burst! The water is coming!’ The woman heard her at last, understood her, too, for after one terrified look in the direction of the village, she turned her face to the hills and began to run. The child ran after her, screaming with fright. And Becky, her ’heart responding to these signs of fear, set her teeth and raced on to Hickory Bend, that settlement of stunted, unlovely human creatures, who, nevertheless, had a right to God’s gift of life. In her previous bicycle riding, Becky had never dreamed of such a rate of speed as this, and vet two miles had never seemed so long before. As a” matter of fact, it was only a matter of a few moments from the time she had leaped on Tom’s bicycle at her own door, before she saw the huddled houses at the Bend. Her lungs ached under a crushing weight. Her breath whistled through her strained, dry lips. Her heartbeats were like blows blurred before her eyes ; she realised the possibility of failure on the very edge of success. ‘ If you give up now, they’ll all be drowned,’ Becky told herself. ' They will be drowned — and so will you.’ The last seemed to come as an afterthought, but it helped. ‘ And you, too,’ Becky insisted, and pedalled on. She was in the settlement at last, gasping for the breath she needed to scream her warning. A woman in the door stared. Hogs came running, chickens fluttered and cackled. * Run ! The dam’s give wav ! Run to the hills!’ ' The slatternly woman was on her feet in an instant , repeating Becky’s warning in a hysterical scream. The bicycle zig-zagged between the houses, set at every imaginable angle, and all at once halted, and went over, just beside a mud-splashed buggy drawn by a gray horse. From the seat a little fellow looked down and smiled. ‘ Hello, Becky. It wasn’t a circus after all, but papa had a patient— ’ Dr. Parke and his daughter met on the steps of the rickety cottage. ‘ The dam’s gone !’ was all the girl said, and the father’s answer was to the point. ‘ Get into the buggy. I’ll bring this woman out. She’s too sick to walk. Then drive for the hills. I’ll follow.’ He kept his word, but none too soon. For when he reached the hillside, a baby on each arm , the homes of Hickory Bend were the playthings of the flood. Awestricken, the little band of refugees saw their dwellings tossed about like chips on the seething green water, that snapped the stout trees like pipe stems. It was midnight before the Parke family was reunited, after agonising, uncertainty on the part of each separate section as to the other’s fate. Aunt Susan had been sure that she was the sole survivor. And the appearance of one after another of the scattered household seemed almost too good to be true. One of the extraordinary features of the catastrophe, as commented upon by the newspapers later, was the comparatively slight loss of life; and in spite of the fact that their home was destroyed, ‘and the very town where it had stood was wiped out of existence, the Parke’s were exultant as they sat together and talked over the marrow escapes of themselves and their friends. ‘ Even if our home is gone we can build another,’ the doctor, said cheerfully. ‘ And we all have each other, and among us a girl who is a heroine.’ Becky blushed at her father’s praise, and the others looked at Jier admiringly. For it was plain to everyone that if it had not been for Becky, the flood would have swept down on Hickory Bend, and fought it unwarned. Becky, in her race with the water that had broken gaol, never guessed that she was to save the life of her father and brother, as well as two score other lives, which to the average, observer seemed to count for little. . / Aunt Susan had heard the story several times. The feat her niece had accomplished seemed' so Incredible that every now and then it was necessary for

her to have it repeated from the start. But now as Dr. Parke made his reference to the heroine, Aunt Susan’s eyes brightened with a new idea.