A Wonderful Waterspout.

Lake Wakatip Mail, Issue 1586, 22 April 1887, Page 3

A Wonderful Waterspout.

Abner Hammel delivered a very interesting lecture to a little crowd that gathered at the shoemaker's to meet him. He bad just returned from an exztended trip through Wsrren, Hunterdon, Somerset, and Mercer, and the rapidity with which he sold the great Health Restorer was eminently satisfactory to his avaricious aoul. Consequently he was in an excellent humour, and his face beamed in the light of the single kerosene lamp over the work-bench as he jingled the silver in his pocket. He had added to his gorgeous costume a sage-green shirt, with a yellow string laced through the front, and on his huge feet was a pair of tan-coloured canvas shoes, at which the shoemaker glanced contemptuously, as if he regarded them as an insult to the sacred craft of St Crispin. Abner's cup of hsppiness overflowed when Spence Tunis addressed him by his recently-assumed title, saying— " It's been purty dry weather, Doctor." "Dry! Well, I shed haot it hez. It's ben so dry up in Hunterdon that the duck's bills are crackin' and droppin' off. Dry, why, they tell me up there thet on lest it rains a heap this month they'll he? to soak their apples afore they kin make any cider, and they'll hev to sell their grapes fur raisins. The dry weather up there hex cracked the bottom ov a good few wells so thet all the water hez run out and folks is haulin' barrels uv water from the river. I see one farmer last week hoein' baked potatoes right out uv a field on the side hill. They wuz cooked by the sun. One place I stopped at last week I bed to pay 10 cents fur a drink fur my boss and only five cents fur my own drink. I took apple jack and the boss took water. Nigh about all uv the springs run dry three weeks ago in them diggins, and the cows hez stopped giviu' milk. I was talkin' 'bout springs to feller down in Somerset county last week, and he aaid hizen never went dry 'cent in winter, and thet the hotter and dryer the weather wuz the more the spring flowed. This kinder s'prised me, and I axed him to let me see the spring, ez I thought I knowed about wells and •prings in general. He took me roun' back of place, near a pond, and showed me a barrel spring set on the side of a slope. The water wuz trickling outen the side of the barrel and runnin' down inter the brook that fed the pond. It wuz jest ez be said, ez cold ez ice, but it wuzn't bublin' up or rowiu' away very fast. I wuz puzzled 'bout it for awhile, (Z I bid never seed sech a cold spring afore, and I couldn't see no frilla around for the water to come frum. 1 studied the thing for some time afore I took perticler notice of a big building near the pond and about twenty-five foot from the spring. I axed bim what it wuz fur, and be said it wuz his Then I seed the hull thing, and I like ter bust myself laffin'. The ice-bouse was about ten foot higher up than the spring, and all the water he wuz a gittin' wuz what run off the meltin' ice. Of course the blamed spring was fuller in hot weather then at any other time, and uv course it didn't flow in winter. It tojk about four-hundred ton uv ice to keep that spring coin', and what struck me funnier wuz that he never thought uv it. Thet 'ere melted ice was a Menu' a seam in the red sandstone and running into the pond where it come frum. H-j hed trout in thet pond, he said, and like enough he did. but he couldn't hev kep' 'em there ef it wa'n't fur the ice water. Tou never see a man so flabbergasted as he wuz when he began to b'leeve that I wuz right about his spring. He wuz nigh ■ick over it, but he seed thet it stood to reason, and he had to knock under to it, but he axed me not to let on about it, ez people wuz coming to the tavern every day fur nuthin' else but to see the spring and to wonder at how cold it were. I knowed a feller down to Elizabeth once thetjhed a well 'bout three-hundred foot from a big icehouse, and he used to brag about bavin' the coldest well in Jershy, but arter the ice-house burnt down one winter, his well went almost dry, and the water in it was no colder than any other well."

M Wells is funny things sometimes," remarked one of the listeners, when the veteran ceased speaking. " I knew a well down in Middlebush to go dry in a night, after being steady and well-behaved for more'n forty years." u Pooh!" said Abner, " that's nothin'. I've known lots of wells to do that, bat it's generally when somebody hez jeet finished diggin* a well in the Mine layer or rock and got a little bit lower down than t'other well, bat I ■eed a well go dry onct inside of a xninnit." M How did that happen?" asked Spence. " I war jest goan' to tell fou. It wuz 'boat thirty years ago it happened. I woz down near Wood bridge bossing a drainin' job. The feller who owned the place hed a good old well that he bragged about 'cause the water waz sold and it never went dry. It was a hot day in July, and the water came in gjod fur the fellers that was a workin' in the ditch. 'Long 'bout four o'clock in the afternoon the ole man come down to the ditch and stood talkin' to me, when we both happened to notice ft black cloud in the weet f

It lookt fur all the world like a big umbreller, and hep' gittia* bigger n bigger every minnit The cows commenct to run and beller, and the hens sqoawk'd and flew round like their heads waa jest cut off. The wind seemed to go down all of a suddint and the sun turned ez red ez blood. The cloud wuz ez black ez ink, and it kep, growin' all the time and stringin' down to'rds the airth, and changinits shape till it looked like a big parsnip or carrot. ' That's a waterspout,' says I, and I broke fur the woods. All hands follered me, and when we got to the edge of the cover we look't back. The ole thing was a twistin' and turnin' and it was so nigh now that we could hear it roar. It didn't teck ground ontil it reached the top of the hill. Then the tail end uv it passed betwixt the house and the barn and carried away the fence, a sendin' the posts and rails a flying up a mile in the air. "When it came to the well it seemed to hesertate fur a second, and I didn't know but it wuz tryin' to make up its mind whether to hit the house or the barn. Suddintly it ript off the well curb and shot it right up in the air. What follered me 'stonished me more than anythin' I ever seed in my life afore. The water in that well jest riz in a solid collum and jined I the waterspout. Then the ole spout shot ahead agin and came scootin' down hill t'ords us. We wuz all so paralysed we couldn't move, and jest stood waitin to be swep' up and carted into kingdom come, but when the spjut struck the ditch we hed been diggin' it sheered off and follered it down to the edge uv the salt medders. The bottom oi the spout wuz 'bout ez big ez a rainwater barrel, and it kep' a-bouncin' up and down every time it hit the ground. It swept every drop uv water out uv the ditch, and the next thing we see it hit a stack of salt hay. The bay wuz sucked up and stuck out all over the spout like bristles. A darkey wuz mowin' right in the track of the spout, and he didn't know it wuz comin' till he heard the roarin' noise. Then he dropped his scythe and ran for a haystack. The spout ketched him and the haystack at the same time. When the spout passed on about its bisiness, there wan't a sign uv the darkey or the haystack. The darkey went up the spout in a load of hay. The last we see of the spout it were a-sailin' over t'ords Staten Island, and the ole men gave the darkey up fur lost, but he wasn't. He come back next mornin' jest ez sound ez ever, and the story he told the ole man was a calker. He said he give hisself up fur lost when he seed | the spout a-comin' and he stuck his bead in tne hay. Next thing he knew he wuz goin' up in the air with the hay all around him. Ho said, when he opened his eyes it seemed ez ef he was inside of a big green bottle. He went up, up, up, ontil he hit his head agen suthin' which turned out to be the ole well bucket hangin' frum the chain. He went on up ontil he found hisself brought up all standin' with bis head agin the roof of the ole curb. There he staid and went a-sailia' along fur miles and miles ontil it got dark. He could'nt see nothin' fur the hay 'round him, and he said he wouldn't a given ten cents fur his chances uv livin' an hour. Every little while suthen' would bang up sg*n the hay under 'is feet, and he never knowed when the ole spout would pick up suthen' heavy enough to smash bim. Biraeby he felt hirself a-settlin' down slow like at first, but gittin' faster and faster ontil suthen' busted, and the ole well curb went a-tumblin' over and over and fell into some water, and rain come peltin' down like a waterfall had let loose. He jest hung on to the well house by his legs and hollered fur help. In a little while the moon come out and he seed that he wa'n't far from shore, and on pullin' his wits together he know'd where he was. He see the forts in the narrows and theh.l s on Staten Island. He pulled hisself loose from the wet hay and swum ashore. Next morning he ketched a boat to F6: 4 h Amboy and come back to Woodbrioge afoot. I reckon he wuz the only man that ever took a ride in a waterspout and lived to tell 'bout it."

M Is he alive yit P," asked the shoe-1 maker. "No," said Abner. "He died a couple uv years arterwards. He wuz drowned in a puddle uv wator 'bout two inches deep. He got full one night, and fell in the. puddle 'longside of the road." " How about the well, was it any good arter the spout sucked it dry ? " asked one of the boys. " Yes," answered the veteran, " but it took a powerful long while to fill it up agen. : ' At this juncture one of the youngsters in the paity went out into the road where the moon was shining brightly. A moment later he rushed back again and exclaimed, " Come out, quick, here's a waterspout now." " Where—where is it ? " "Here," said the yonngster, slapping the tin leader that led the water from the roof to the cistern, and then he jumped away to avoid the wrath of the veteran. " I reckon you think you're smart," said Abner," but I think that 'mounts to the same thing ez tellin' lie*, and ef ther's anythin' on top of this airth ihat I do despise it's a liar."