THE SPRING HIGH TIDE THAT CARRIED AWAY GRAN'SIR'S MUG.
By E. A. Rand
“Cephas, do look at that ’ere boy!” said old lady Smith, watching from a window her grandson Peter. Cephas Smith, who was in the room, smacking his lips over a mug, came to the window, and remarked:— “It is a dreadful high tide. Peter’s hen-coop may have to go. I’ve told that boy more’n fifty times to put his hens somewhere else.” “Yes, it is a master tide. It keeps a-comin’ in and a-comin’, and all the time this ’ere storm is a-blowin’ guns down the chimney. Jest hear it! And that tide is a-risin’, and keeps a-comin’ in, nearer, nearer, jest like a livin’ and breathin’ bein’. O, I don’t like sich things!” While she spoke she sharply watched her husband. She was thinking of another tide that for some time had been rising, even Cephas Smith’s habit of drinking. He had just taken his favorite mug of flip at the kitchen stove, and nigh the kitchen cupboard. Grandmother Smith had had a confidential talk with Peter, now in the yard trying to prop up his hen-coop. She had frankly confessed to Peter that “gran’sir was gettin’ into a dreadful foolish habit,” and “what to do she didn’t know.” “I’d slave myself to stop his drinkin’. He’ll jest ruin hisself, Pete.” Here Grandmother Smith buried her face in the folds of her long apron, and sobbed pitifully. “Dreadful foolish?” cried Peter, “it’s dreadful wicked!” Then he did not know but he had gone altogether too far in thus speaking his mind, and he went up to Grandmother Smith, and began, by way of reparation, to stroke her back fondly and pityingly. “Don’t worry, grandma. He—he—don’t10worry. I’ll stand by ye, and perhaps,—why, who knows?—between us both, we may do something. We can put our heads together, you know.” This made Grandmother Smith smile, for Peter was just a small boy, and his head was not a very big one. At any rate, his curly head did not seem very large beside grandmother’s, with big folds of soft white hair all about it, and outside of that a fluffy white cap and its ribbons and bows. Then there was silence. What next? “We can pray, grandma,” murmured Peter. “Yes, dear, we will do that,” said grandmother soberly. And that very night two pairs of hands were folded in prayer,—one in grandmother’s chamber, and one in a little nook under the low slanting roof where Peter slept. The conference with Peter came into the grandmother’s thoughts as she and Gran’sir Smith stood side by side at the window, and watched the high tide deepening round Peter’s hen-coop. “There may be chance for Peter to save his hen-coop by all his sticks and props,” observed Gran’sir Smith, “but he ought to have built on higher ground, and I will tell him so.” He took his old tarpaulin hat from its nail, and went out into the yard. “Peter,” he shouted, as he faced the storm, “you ought to have built on higher ground!” “I think so too. Do you know, gran’sir, that the shed is in danger?” He looked at the shed, now encompassed by water. The Smiths lived on a lane that ran down to a river making in from the sea, and subject, in certain storms, to violent tides. An “equinoctial,” for instance, would beat down fiercely, and scourge the river as it were to madness. The tide was now rising steadily about the hen-coop, and threatening soon to lift it on its blue shoulders and bear it away. Peter prudently had removed the hens to a safe retreat. What safety was there for the hen-house? It was the shed, tho, that was now the object of anxiety. “I see that there is suthin’ to be done about that ’ere shed,” remarked gran’sir. “I will be back soon.” He went into the kitchen, prepared a stiff mug of flip, and drank it down eagerly. “O Cephas!” moaned grandmother. “Now, wife, why do you say anything! I have a hard job before me.” She wiped her tears in reply. She knew that gran’sir already had had more mugs of flip than he could carry off. “Yes; you can’t handle yourself out there.” “Can’t I handle myself? You’ll see, you’ll see, madam! I think I can!” He strutted across the yard, but unsteadily, and went into the shed to get a joist with which to prop up the shed on the outside. He carried it outside. The Smith lot went down to the river. Here a wharf had been built, and the shed and hen-house were on this wharf, the rear wall of each coming to the wharf’s edge. Gran’sir went to the edge of the wharf to see where he could best set up his prop. He was feeling the liquor he had drunk. He made a careless movement, and down he tumbled, and over the edge of the wharf he went. “Help! help!” rang out his voice. Peter was on hand, small boy tho he was. Somebody else was on hand—Grandmother Smith. She came fluttering out of the house, and then ran to the wharf. In her hand she carried her old red shawl. The faded fabric was homely now, but it was strong. Holding on to her end firmly, she flung out the other end to Gran’sir Smith. “Ketch it! ketch it!” she shrieked. Gran’sir Smith grabbed it. “Now, Peter, help your grandma! Pull in! All together—now!” Grandmother Smith showed herself an expert. Peter did his share. They pulled together. They pulled gran’sir to the wharf. They pulled him over the edge of the wharf. How they did it they could not say. Then they led him into the house. He was put into dry clothes. He was placed before the kitchen fire. He looked so comfortable there before the cheerfully purring fire. He wore a blue dressing-gown that Grandmother Smith had made for him, and it contrasted finely with his long white hair that the same faithful wife had brushed back from his forehead. Now and then he looked up at the old flip-mug on the mantel over the stove, glancing down at his blue dressing-gown. He looked very solemn. “What are you thinkin’ of, Cephas?” “I was thinkin’ if I had looked this way, all slickt up so neat, if I had gone down to the bottom of the river.” “O!—O husband, don’t speak of it!” “But I must, wife; if—if—if it hadn’t been for you and Peter I should have been down at the bottom of the river, sartin. I know why I fell over.” Here he gave a savage glance at the mug. “Is that shed a-standin’?” “Yes, and I believe it won’t go, after all.” “Well, that hen-coop, hen-house—won’t that go?” “No, it is standing, and I don’t believe it will go.” Gran’sir rose in his chair. “Suthin’ has got to go!” he said energetically; “and it shall be that mug! Peter!” “Take my mug and a piece of board, and put the mug on the board, and then put the board on the edge of the wharf, and then—then”—here gran’sir’s voice became almost terrific—“then launch her! That thing has got to go! Not goin’ to have this tide for nothin’!” The mug went. The tide swept about the board, drifted it away, and quickly smothered it. Its fate was watched from the kitchen window, and then gran’sir said:— “Now, wife, pray for me. Where’s Peter? O, here he is! Peter, pray too. I want my appetite sunk way down—way down—same as that mug. God help me!” The wind raved down the chimney. The rain rattled against the windows. Above all these sounds, tho, could be heard the voice of Grandmother Smith earnestly crying to God, and then came a boy’s voice, clear and penetrating. Never such a day in that house as the day when the spring high tide carried away gran’sir’s mug.—S. S. Times.