Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1900-08-29
"l'Jl qtve 1jou tlDo days to get your house
out of the aDGy."

out of the aUay."
won't help you III give You two days
to take your house out Of the way, and
if at the end of that time I find it still
in the road I'll make kindling wood Of
it and arrest you into the bargain. You
hear mel
"The captain heard him well enough
and knew that he meant business.
However, be didn't condescend to
make any answer. and could see that
he was determined to let his house
stand where it was. The truth is he
couldn't do anything else He couldn't
haul it back on to my land without
committing trespass, and he couldn't
haul it on to his own land without first
getting it across the river, which was
more than be or any other man could
do. My own idea is that if it hadn't
been for the cloudburst that happened
the next afternoon Captain Martin
would have waited for the sheriff with
a shotgun. and the sheriff. being one
Of the brightest minds in our section
of country. would have had his revolv-
er ready. and before the work Of de-
molishing the house could begin there
would have been one or two corpses
ready for the coroner
"You don't know what cloudburst
isH Well. that is astonishingl A cloud
burst is what we call sort of Noah's
food without any ark You see, some
big cloud that holds perhaps million
tons of water suddenly goes to pieces.
and the water all comes down at once,
the same as it does at Niagara falls
There's the came difference between an
ordinary rain and a cloudburst that
there is between sprinkling cabbage
with watering pot and dumping q
whole washtub full Of water over it.
Thishyer cloudburst that I'm speaking
Of took place 80 or 40 miles above
here, and the whole lot Of water ran
into ii Pomponoosuc river and swelled
it into a raging torrent that swept
everything before it. | heard it COM
ing just before it reached me. and l
went for that hill yonder as fast as l
could run and just managed to reach
it in time Before | started hailed
the captain and told him to run while
he could. but he pretended not to hear
me and remarked. as if he was speak.
ing to the universe and all the rest OF
mankind. that the curse Of thishyer
country was the confounded imperti-
nence CT the lower classes He was one
of those men that nobody can help ex-
cept with club, he was that everlast-
ingly obstinate and conceited
Martin saw what was going to hap
pen as we'll as did, and just before the
food struck his house | saw him trying
to rig up a sort of steering oar by LASH
ing plank to one of the veranda posts.
Then the flood, which came down like
a wall six feet high. burst on the house,
and away it whirled. The captains
steering oar wasn't Of the least use,
and before he went out Of sight he
dropped it and sat down on the railing
of his veranda with an arm around the
post and his pipe in his mouth as COM
Portable as you please watched him
for the best part of mile, and | could
not see but what the house was doing
very we'll and that the chances were
that it would bring up in some safe To-
cality before reaching the Muskingum
falls, which are Al miles from here.
Anyway. says to myself. here's an
end of trespassing on my property and
blocking up the public road and an end
of a mighty disagreeable neighbor. >
The sheriff, when he came the next day
and found that there wasn't any work
for him to do. said pretty much the
same thing
"What became of Captain Martini
Well. his house hoated ashore down
nigh on to II miles from here. and the
captain never so much as got his feet
wet. When the water went down, 1t
left the house on the most valuable cor