The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Crucial Moment, by
Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)

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Title: The Crucial Moment
1911

Author: Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)

Release Date: November 19, 2007 [EBook #23557]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CRUCIAL MOMENT ***

Produced by David Widger

THE CRUCIAL MOMENT

By Charles Egbert Craddock

1911

A mere moment seems an inconsiderable factor in life--only its
multiplication attaining importance and signifying time. It could
never have occurred to Walter Hoxer that all his years of labor, the
aggregation of the material values of industry, experience, skill,
integrity, could be nullified by this minimum unit of space--as sudden,
as potent, as destructive, as a stroke of lightning. But after the fact
it did not remind' him of any agency of the angry skies; to him it was
like one of the obstructions of the river engineers to divert the course
of the great Mississippi, a mattress-spur, a thing insignificant in
itself, a mere trifle of woven willow wands, set up at a crafty angle,
against the tumultuous current Yet he had seen the swirling waves, in
their oncoming like innumerable herds of wild horses, hesitate at
the impact, turn aside, and go racing by, scouring out a new channel,
leaving the old bank bereft, thrown inland, no longer the margin of the
stream.

The river was much in his mind that afternoon as he trudged along the
county road at the base of the levee, on his way, all un-prescient, to
meet this signal, potential moment. Outside, he knew that the water
was standing higher than his head, rippling against the thick turf of
Bermuda grass with which the great earthwork was covered. For the river
was bank-full and still rising--indeed, it was feared that an overflow
impended. However, there was as yet no break; advices from up the river
and down the river told only of extra precautions and constant work to
keep the barriers intact against the increasing volume of the stream.
The favorable chances were reinforced by the fact of a singularly dry
winter, that had so far el