About The Future citizen. (Milledgeville, Ga.) 1914-???? | View Entire Issue (June 24, 1916)
PAGE 4. 1 HE FUTURE CITIZEN. ill * I ; WHEN THE RIVER ROSE , ? “Fired! Fired! J?ired!” The rushing river seemed to snarl the words as Gerald Holt walked home ward from the Redwood Mills. Two hours before, he had been Bred because a letter had been lost; and Mercer, the bookkeeper, had been too cowardly to admit his re sponsibility. Instead, he had placed the blame on Gerald and gruff old Bartlett, the manager had dismiss ed the boy. Now he was going home—going home to tell his mother of his dis grace. That was the hardest task of all. It was a morning to encourage dismal thoughts. Even the lower ing clouds seemed to share the dis couraged spirits of the boy. The old logging road that led away from Redwood Mills up to the shakery railroad bridge where Gerald crossed the river to his home, was muddy and wagon-rutted from the heavy loads of logs that had been hauled down to the mill. The Redwood had been rising steadily for three days. Heavy rains far up in the mountains had poured into the stream until the usual shore lines were marked out by the rush of muddy waters. Fields had been overswept. Trees that stood at the normal limits of the stream bed seemed now almost in the center of the raging river, their drift fleeted bcughs protruding sadly from the tide. It was *uch a tide as this that the mill men dreaded, for locked in a simple dam of logs and chains swung across the river at the Red wood mill*, were thousands of logs that had been floated down from the hills to the mills to be cut up into lumber. That was an easy way the Redwood Company had of getting sawlogs to the mills. In the fall, the trees were cut and rolled down to the brink of the river. With the summer tide the logs were picked up by rising stream and floated to the mills, mill men. The drift of logs behind the boom was bigger now than it had ever been in the history of the Redwood Company. Millions of feet of lumber, as yet uncut floated and whirled in the seething river, protesting against the man-made dam that held them in leash. Men bad been working night and day dragging the logs from behind the overburdened boom, but the vast hundreds of logs were not diminish ed, because new recruits to this army of fallen forest monarchs kept floating down with the tide* There was much apprehension concerning the boom. Although it had been examined by experts each year and pronunced safe, it had never been called upon to hold back such a tremendous drift of logs crowded forward by such a mighty current. If it parted, the logs belonging to the Redwood Company would run wild down the river to be picked up by un scrupulous mill men further down the river. That was the unwritten law of the river—recognized, if not hon est. Gerald paused on his way across the treacherous bridge to watch the logs drifting down the river, whirling as they struck the eddies in the stream. Presently there came into view a tiny black speck on the muddy expanse of the river. Little by little, the speck grew in size until Gerald realized that it was not a single log. Perhaps two logs had been brought together by the force of the hastening stream. The increasing size of the speck dispelled this belief, though, al most before the opinion had been formed. Then the solution became ap parent as the speck came fully into view. It was a raft of logs—hun dreds of heavy logs, held to gether by crossbars attached to the logs by wooden pins driven deep into heart of the timbers. Somewhere up the river some run his forest output to market, Gerald concluded. Doubtless he was taking his wares to the Red wood Mills. Frequently a raft of timber came down to Redwood in this way and after much dickering and haggling as to price, the woodsman would go home with the money for his logs. In the old days, mill men had told Gerald, hundreds of rafts came down, but in later days, they were not seen so often. The size of tne oncoming raft caused Gerald to inspect it more carefully. He looked for the little shanty built on rafts sometimes, to afford a scanty shelter to the hardy crew. This one, strangely enough, had no cabin. Then another hasty glance revealed the fact that i* had no crew. It was running wild! The reali zation almost stunned the boy! A runaway raft on a mad river and with a log-Blled boom less than a -mile below! “It’ll break the booml” gasped Gerald, staring at the rushing raft as thongh it threatened his own destiuction. And then a feeling of triumpth clutched him, although he was cherishng an ignoDle thought. The raft with its tons of weight, thrust foward by the maddened river, would sever the boom and release the thousands of logs held so weekly in restraint. It would spell.trouble for Bart lett—rough, grouff Bill Bartlett, who that morning had discharged him. It might cause trouble for Mercer, even. But what of Mercer’s wife and Mercer’s little girl. With that thought came a revulsion of feeling. A sence of despair poss essed his soul, for he knew that the raft—if it broke the bocm, which it must invetably do—would cause the mill to shut down. The men would be out of work and that would mean disappointment, even hunger psrhaps tor the wives and children of the men he knew and liked at the mill. The raft was now* only a few rods above the bridge. Even if he where they were caught by the “boom”—as the chain of logs ac ross the river was known to thedaring woodsmen had decided to HAVE YOU A LITTLE FUTURE UTIZEN IN YOUR H0MF.?-WEIL, YOU SHOULD.
