Rensselaer Union, Volume 8, Number 17, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 13 January 1876 — THE ICE-GORGE. [ARTICLE]

THE ICE-GORGE.

“It’s coming, mister! It follows me close, and if you’re wise you will make tracks before. Why, it’s Mr. Bradburn— Mark Bradburn, isn’t it? I didn’t know you at first.” I, for my part, knew the speaker—a young American assistant surveyor in State employ—well enough; and as he checked his fast-trotting horses and leaned over the side-rail of the light, highwheeled wagon which he drove I could see by his flushed cheek and excited manner that something serious must have occurred. “The ice-gorge so nuw>fe .talked of is really descending, then?” I began. “I thought precautions hud—/ —” “Ay, but we’re dead beat,” interrupted McKinlop—for that was his name. “ The engineer-in-chief has tried everything, but the enemy $s too strong for us; and unless we can get time to blast it as it reaches the Narrows nothing but a miracle can save the towns of Clayville and Port Adams. It’ll be at Ithaca a quarter of an hour after I am, and let me tell you it’s no sport to try conclusions with the drifting pack that so big a stream as the Delaware can send down.” And without further parley he lashed his horses and hurried down the road that skirted the bank; while almost immediately afterward 1 caught sight of a number of vehicles of various sorts and sizes rattling along at furious speed. These were filled with men, women, children and household gear; and as the drivers went past the spot where I, with several of my neighbors and some of the workmen from the mine of which I was manager, was standing they shouted aloud some hoarse words of warning, looking back and pointing up the river with their whips. Every eye was turned toward the jutting point where we were likely to catch the first glimpse of the advancing foe. “ Bruton, and Dutch Town and Sparta, on the New Jersey side, were swamped yesterday, so ,’tis said,” remarked an old farmer in blue homespun and boots of untanned leather. “ I guess we Pennsylvania folks won’t get otf shot-free nouther. There it comes. Britisher—rounding the point!" Looking toward the spot indicated I described something like a moving wall of glistening greenish ice, sparkling in the sunlight; and advancing slowly and with a stately majesty down the broad river, which it seemed to fill from bank to bank. This could be nothing less than the socalled ice-gorge, or accumulation of floating blocks and slabs from the upper waters of the Delaware, partially melted by the hot sun of an American spring, and damming back the chafing waters of the swollen river to an extent which threatened mischief. All this was new to me, an Englishman born, since it is only in very hard winters that such phenomena are witnessed in those regions; and during the four years which I had passed in the country this last winter had been exceptionally severe. I, Mark Bradburn, had, at the age of five and twenty, been reckoned fortunate in being promoted to be acting manager of the Black Star Iron Mine, close to a town called Ithaca, on the Pennsylvania shore of the Delaware. But then I had for two years had an opportunity, as clerk of the works, of proving to the satisfaction of my principals that I was capable of superintending the business efficiently enough. A Staffordshire lad, I had from childnood been familiar with iron ores and their treatment; while, having early in life been placed under the tuition of a mining engineer, 1 had brought out with me to America that technical knowledge which so greatly tends to smooth the path of an emigrant. It was for the sake of my widowed mother in England— who loved me very dearly, and who, I knew, never failed night and morning to put up a prayer for the safety and well-being of her boy beyond the seas—that 1 was so eager to earn the means to establish a home which I could ask her to share. With this end in view during the first years of my residence in the United States I had practiced self-denial as well as industry; had roughed it contentedly, and had spent my leisure hours in perfecting myself in the theoretical lore of my . profession and in cultivating an acquaintance with the German language, in which I could now converse fluently—a useful accomplishment in a district where so many of our workers were fair-haired new-comers who knew- no tongue but that of their native Saxony or Pomerania. My post, as acting manager of a Pennsylvanian mine, was one which entailed some privations, much vigilance and a good deal of patient toil. The Black Star was but a propertyjof moderate extent—not one of those mammoth mines that yield their thousands of tons in the monthly output—but the iron whs of excellent quality; fine red hamiatite that almost equaled the best Swedish in luster and purity; and nothing but the cost of coal and of labor prevented us from carrying on a much larger trade than we actually did. Our workmen were a motley crew of varied nationality, for, the best of the native pitmen had (been allured away by the gold and silver of the tar West, while the sturdy Irish immigrant*- preferred open-air labor to earning a livelihood below ground. So high were the wages we were forced to give that Cornish miners, and colliers from Scotland often found it worth their while to cross and recross the Atlantic, spending their own slack season profitably among our shafts and galleries. Salaries in the United States are perhaps not quite on a proportionate level with weekly wages, but then tlie opportunities of rising in the world are prob-

ably riiore frequent than at home; and I did not complain, anticipating the time when, as permanent manager, I should be in receipt of a better income and, prospectively, of some share in the profitsof the firm. For the time being I had board and lodging, at the rate of $1.50 a day, in an upland farm-house, and ran no risk of damage, either in person or property, by the inundation that menaced the dwellings of those who lived closer to the river. I was therefore a mere spectator, though ready and willing at a pinch to be useful to those who were lesfc fortunate. “ There’s a woman on Ship Island, there, waving something and calling to us. May I never, but it’s young Mme. Parnell herself! Yes, and there’s the child with her,” said one of men on the bank. “ Can’t be,’’said another, incredulously. “ The farmer would never have lingered this long, till he’s right in the grip of the ice.” “ Parnell’s not tew hum, I tell you,” answered the other in his New Jersey accent. “He’s away this week past to Philadelphia city. Yes, that’s the wife calling for help, poor young thing! Guess those cowardly skunks of hired men hev gone off in the flatboat and left the woman and child to shift for themselves.”

To explain this I may briefly say that two miles above Ithaca and almost opposite to the bluff on which we were standing there is an islet in the river shaded by trees and which takes its name from some fancied resemblance in its shape to that of a ship. On it stood a farm-house with brightly-painted gables of carved woodwork, a tiled roof and a porch which in summer was festooned with twining roses —a, picturesque object in the landscape. Often in the still sultriness of an August day I had looked admiringly at this house, with its peach and apple orchards, its -grassy meadows shaded by tall cottonwood poplars, and its sunny garden sloping to the water’s edge, where the great streaked melons and yellow pumpkins lay basking in the midst of blooming flowers, and had considered it as the very abode ot peace, i knew the proprietor of this enviable dwelling—Sfetli Parnell, by name - but very slightly, and had never met with the other members of his family or set foot on his tiny domain. That the island farm was in great danger from the advancing ice was but too manifest; and I was astonished when, on demanding who was ready to assist me in carrying aid to the deserted woman and child, no response was made beyond a depreoatory growl of dissent from my proposal. “ Throwin’ life away as you’d throw a corn-stalk, that’s what I call it,” pithily rejoined after a pause the old yeoman from the hills. “ ’Tain’t the drift that’s speckling the river now that I’d value the snapping of a gunlock,” he continued, pointing to the loose ice floating by; “ it’s the gorge itself that would smash in the side of a hundred-ton sloop as a boy cracks a peanut; and see, mister, the jam’s breaking already!” And indeed the ice-wall, which had for some minutes been stationary, having probably anchored itself on some shoal or sandbank, was again in motion, urged by the resistless pressure of the flood above it, while the shrieks and despairing gestures of the lonely occupant of the islet show T ed in what an agony of alarm she beheld the near approach of the destroying wave. Still, although I made an urgent appeal to around me to aid in manning a broadliorn—one <of a nifhiber of boats, of various build and size, that lay moored in the creek hard by—no volunteer answered to the call; and when I declared my intention of going alone jo the rescue of those on the island, efforts were made to dissuade me from running the risk of what, to the bystanders, appeared to be all but inevitable death.

“Good grit; I’ll say that for the Britisher!” Such were the old farmer’s valedictory words as I sprang into a canoe, grasped the paddle and pushed off. “ Pity, too, to see it done. We oughter hev held hint back by force, neighbors.” However, I was by this time well out of the creek, which formed a sort of miniature harbor, and plying my paddle with the vigor necessary to contend with the force of the current, now swollen by the effects of the long-continued thaw. Luckily, during my residence beside the Delaware I had acquired that dexterity in the handling of a canoe which nothing but practice could confer, and I succeeded in eluding the shock of those sheets of floating ice—the impact of which might have proved fatal to my slender skiff—and had almost gained the southern extremity of the island when a.Joud shout of warning from those on shore made me turn my head, to behold, with dismay, that a quantity of gigantic masses of the gleaming crystal had broken away from the slow-moving gorge and were rushing furiously down the stream, revolving in giddy circles as they came. Almost mechanically I gave one long sweeping stroke with the paddle, and, as the canoe darted forward, rose to my feet and sprang into the water, which proved to be little more than waistdeep at the spot, so that I easily scrambled up the garden bank, while my frail bark, caught and crushed between two of the drifting blocks, floated a helpless wreck along the river. Up to this moment I- had achieved a partial, but only a partial, success. I had reached the island, but the heaviest part of my task, as I was well aware, lay before me. The canoe was gone, so that, unless some boat belonging to the farm should be still Listened to the banish I must depend on my own ingenuity for the means of conveying myseif and those for whose lives I liad imperiled my own to firm ground. Had I but time I had little doubt that, by some one of the expedients that suggest themselves to a trained engineer, I could ettect ajsafe passage to the shore; but I could not avoid entertaining some dismal forebodings as I noted the alarming rapidity with which the floodwave was rising. Another so-called “jam” had taken place as the .ice-gorge touched upon the-shallows the island and I could hear the grinding and clashing of the ice as slab upon slab was piled up by the . mighty pressure' from above. 1 had enough to do to soothe the fears of poor little Mrs. Parnell—a gentle, blue-eyed little woman—who had thanked and blessed me as her preserver when we met, but who now, as she saw the river rushing over the islet, 'sweeping away bam and byre, and invading the lower rooms oft lie farm-house, gave up all for lost; while the child—a noble-looking little boy—showed scarcely any sign of alarm. Those were anxious moments which succeeded. I coujd tell by the dull thudthud ! as of a steam hammer, that the ice was beating against the stout timbers of the farm-house. The meadows were submerged, the garden a dreary waste of floating fragments of wood-work, uprooted shrubs and turbid water. The flood was up to my knees as 1 crossed the threshold of the dwelling itselt.” That there was no bbat but that which had .been, carried off by the cowardly hirelings who

had left their master’s family to perish I had speedily ascertained. Of rescue from the shore there could be no reasonable prospect. The danger had increased tenfold since first I set off on my venturous vojage, and no one was likely to launch a boat in the face of almost certain destruction. So far as I could see, there were bat two courses open to us. We might remain in the upper stories ofjthe farm-house, or, if hard pressed by the mounting water, take refuge on the roof, trusting that the strong wooden framework would hold together till the flood should abate. But the manner ill which the walls trembled beneath the shock of the on-coming ice was not reassuring, while the frightful rapidity with which the water rose threatened absolute ruin. The other alternative was to construct a raft capable of battling with current and pack-drift; and to this I at once addressed myself. Luckily a number of empty flour-casks set on end, and some sheep-hurdles, which I espied floating about in the yard, now transformed into a lagoon, in the midst of which the affrighted poultry screamed and fluttered, supplied the needful materials, while my professional handiness stood me in good stead; but the peril was pressing ana immihfent, for now the blows dealt by the ice-blocks without made the house reel as though beneath the strokes of a batteringram.

Never before had I toiled as I did then, well knowing that life and death depended on nry promptitude, and that the breaking up of another “jam,” or temporary ice-dam, would probably render the river unnavigable, so that, should the house be swept away, our last poor chance of safety would be gone. So I worked on with fierce eagerness until the empty casks and the osier hurdles were as tightly secured with withes and cords as could be effected by one pair of hands; and then the precious raft was launched, Mrs. Parnell lending her slight strength to the task as, slowly and painfully, it was dragged through the shallow water in search of a place where there should be sufficient depth to set it afloat. There was a moment of agonizing' suspense, and I strained every muscle and sinew in the attempt to drag the light structure clear of some uprooted trees, while the house shook perceptibly beneath the thundering blows of the piled-up ice, which now rose many feet high at the back of the islet. Then the raft floated; and, bidding those under my charge to sit still and leave the rest to me, I seized a fir-pole and thrust it off from the bank into the whirling water. Once, twice and yet a third time I touched the bottom with the pole with which I tried to steer the rude craft, and then we were in deep water, and’driving along at the mercy of the current. A shriek from Mrs. Parnell made me look back, and I saw the whole side of the dwelling we had just left collapse like a child’s house of cards, while with a roar like that of artillery the ice-bar-rier broke up, and in pell-mell confusion the shining hillocks and glittering slabs began to hurry toward us, the horrible grinding sound of the blocks as they dashed against one another being loud enough to deafen the ear that heard it. For a moment, but only for a moment, despair took possession of my heart; but then, as the eddy swept us in shoreward, a ringing cheer from the men clustered on the bank, and then another, attracted my attention. The ice was very near, but the shore, thank Heaven, was nearer still, and a long rope was thrown to us. I caught it, and we were dragged to the bank, where, amidst the drifting ice, the rait was upset, and it was not without some trouble and peril that, bruised, wet and breathless, we gained the solid earth.

Half an hour later Mrs. Parnell and little Louis, chilled and exhausted, but unharmed, were safe under the hospitable care of the kindly folks in whose house 1 lived, while before night her husband arrived to clasp the rescued ones to his heart. “ Under God’s mercy,” said the honest fellow to me, with a quivering lip, as lie took my hand and wrung it for the tenth time, “ I owe the preservation of all I love to you. We’re friends for life, I guess.” And stanch and fast friends have we been till now, though years have rolled by since that day and both of us have prospered in the world aud have happy homes and a fair sufficiency of the good tilings of life. But we have neither of us ever forgotten the events of that terrible winter, or let slip from our memories the ice-gorge and what came of \i.—Belgravia. p