creeping brown

When I was a kid we lived out in the country in southern Pennsylvania. It was a hilly area, and there were some small mountain streams, and a little river, or actually a creek. It was called Tonoloway Creek. One of the little streams ran next to the road and went under our driveway in a large metal culvert, then down into the creek. One winter in the mid to late seventies, there was a heavy snowfall, and the next day, it was fairly warm. On that day I was playing in the frozen stream bed at the end of the driveway. The snow was thick and heavy and perfect for making giant snowballs, so that is what I was doing. As I was pushing what seemed like a particularly large snowball, I noticed that there was a strange smell in the air. I stopped pushing the snowball and looked around. At first I didn't see anything out of the ordinary, but then I looked upstream and noticed something that seemed very strange. The pristine white snow in the stream bed was turning brown. The brown color was getting closer to me. It was almost magical, and a bit spooky, like some wood nymph had cast a spell on the snow and the spell was slowly spreading towards me. I watched it for a minute or two, almost hypnotized, as it approached. When it was a few yards away I decided I ought to move out of the way. I got out of the stream bed and up onto the culvert which went under the driveway and watched from there. The brown color started moving faster, and went into the culvert and came out the other side, and I noticed the snow seemed to be sinking where it had turned brown. Then there was a rushing sound, and a little wall of muddy brown water about two feet high came rushing down the stream bed. I got up onto the driveway and watched as my large snowballs disintegrated into the oncoming melt water. The water in the stream bed got higher and higher until it was nearly filling the culvert, which I had never seen before. It was fascinating, and kind of scary. It seemed so odd for there to be a flash flood in the quiet of a snow covered landscape. The snow was melting fast on the steep hillsides all at once and seemed to come out of nowhere. I was glad that I had smelled the muddy water and looked to see the creeping brown and gotten out of its way. If I hadn't been paying attention, I could have been washed down through the culvert into Tonoloway Creek, which had also turned a muddy brown and was quickly rising.