Rose O' the River
by Kate Douglas Wiggin
Hypertext Meanings and Commentaries
from the Encyclopedia of the Self
by Mark Zimmerman

by

Kate Douglas Wiggin  
  
  
  
  
Table of Contents  

THE PINE AND THE ROSE  
"OLD KENNEBEC"  
THE EDGEWOOD "DRIVE"  
"BLASPHEMIOUS SWEARIN'"  
THE GAME OF JACKSTRAWS  
HEARTS AND OTHER HEARTS  
THE LITTLE HOUSE  
THE GARDEN OF EDEN  
THE SERPENT  
THE TURQUOISE RING  
ROSE SEES THE WORLD  
GOLD AND PINCHBECK  
A COUNTRY CHEVALIER  
HOUSEBREAKING  
THE DREAM ROOM  
  
  
  
  
THE PINE AND THE ROSE   
  
It was not long after sunrise, and Stephen Waterman, fresh from  
his dip in the river, had scrambled up the hillside from the hut  
in the alder-bushes where he had made his morning toilet.  
  
An early ablution of his sort was not the custom of the farmers  
along the banks of the Saco, but the Waterman house was hardly a  
stone's throw from the water, and there was a clear, deep  
swimming-hole in the Willow Cove that would have tempted the  
busiest man, or the least cleanly, in York County. Then, too,  
Stephen was a child of the river, born, reared, schooled on its  
very brink, never happy unless he were on it, or in it, or beside  
it, or at least within sight or sound of it.  
  
The immensity of the sea had always silenced and overawed him,  
left him cold in feeling. The river wooed him, caressed him, won  
his heart. It was just big enough to love. It was full of  
charms and changes, of varying moods and sudden surprises. Its  
voice stole in upon his ear with a melody far sweeter and more  
subtle than the boom of the ocean. Yet it was not without  
strength, and when it was swollen with the freshets of the spring  
and brimming with the bounty of its sister streams, it could dash  
and roar, boom and crash, with the best of them.
  
Stephen stood on the side porch, drinking in the glory of the  
sunrise, with the Saco winding like a silver ribbon through the  
sweet loveliness of the summer landscape.  
  
And the river rolled on toward the sea, singing its morning song,  
creating and nourishing beauty at every step of its onward path.  
Cradled in the heart of a great mountain-range, it pursued its  
gleaming way, here lying silent in glassy lakes, there rushing  
into tinkling little falls, foaming great falls, and thundering  
cataracts. Scores of bridges spanned its width, but no steamers  
flurried its crystal depths. Here and there a rough little  
rowboat, tethered to a willow, rocked to and fro in some quiet  
bend of the shore. Here the silver gleam of a rising perch,  
chub, or trout caught the eye; there a pickerel lay rigid in the  
clear water, a fish carved in stone: here eels coiled in the  
muddy bottom of some pool; and there, under the deep shadows of  
the rocks, lay fat, sleepy bass, old, and incredibly wise, quite  
untempted by, and wholly superior to, the rural fisherman's worm.
  
The river lapped the shores of peaceful meadows; it flowed along  
banks green with maple, beech, sycamore, and birch; it fell  
tempestuously over darns and fought its way between rocky cliffs  
crowned with stately firs. It rolled past forests of pine and  
hemlock and spruce, now gentle, now terrible; for there is said  
to be an Indian curse upon the Saco, whereby, with every great  
sun, the child of a paleface shall be drawn into its cruel  
depths. Lashed into fury by the stony reefs that impeded its  
progress, the river looked now sapphire, now gold, now white, now  
leaden gray; but always it was hurrying, hurrying on its  
appointed way to the sea.
  
After feasting his eyes and filling his heart with a morning  
draught of beauty, Stephen went in from the porch and, pausing at  
the stairway, called in stentorian tones: "Get up and eat your  
breakfast, Rufus! The boys will be picking the side jams today,  
and I'm going down to work on the logs. If you come along, bring  
your own pick-pole and peavey."  Then, going to the kitchen  
pantry, he collected, from the various shelves, a pitcher of  
milk, a loaf of bread, half an apple-pie, and a bowl of  
blueberries, and, with the easy methods of a household unswayed  
by feminine rule, moved toward a seat under an apple-tree and  
took his morning meal in great apparent content. Having  
finished, and washed his dishes with much more thoroughness than  
is common to unsuperintended man, and having given Rufus the  
second call to breakfast with the vigor and acrimony that usually  
marks that unpleasant performance, he strode to a high point on  
the river-bank  and, shading his eyes with his hand, gazed  
steadily down stream.
  
Patches of green fodder and blossoming potatoes melted into soft  
fields that had been lately mown, and there were glimpses of  
tasseling corn rising high to catch the sun. Far, far down on  
the opposite bank of the river was the hint of a brown roof, and  
the tip of a chimney that sent a slender wisp of smoke into the  
clear air. Beyond this, and farther back from the water, the   
trees apparently hid a cluster of other chimneys, for thin  
spirals of smoke ascended here and there. The little brown roof  
could never have revealed itself to any but a lover's eye; and  
that discerned something even smaller, something like a pinkish  
speck, that moved hither and thither on a piece of greensward  
that sloped to the waterside.  
  
"She's up!" Stephen exclaimed under his breath, his eyes shining,  
his lips smiling. His voice had a note of hushed exaltation  
about it, as if "she," whoever she might be, had, in  
condescending to rise, conferred a priceless boon upon a waiting  
universe. If she were indeed a "up"  (so his tone implied), then  
the day, somewhat falsely heralded by the sunrise, had really  
begun, and the human race might pursue its appointed tasks,  
inspired and uplifted by the consciousness of her existence. It  
might properly be grateful for the fact of her birth; that she  
had grown to woman's estate; and, above all, that, in common with  
the sun, the lark, the morning-glory, and other beautiful things  
of the early day, she was up and about her lovely, cheery,  
heart-warming business.
  
The handful of chimneys and the smoke spirals rising here and  
there among the trees on the river-bank belonged to what was  
known as the Brier Neighborhood. There were only a few houses in  
all, scattered along a side road leading from the river up to  
Liberty Centre. There were no great signs of thrift or  
prosperity, but the Wiley cottage, the only one near the water,  
was neat and well cared for, and Nature had done her best to  
conceal man's indolence, poverty, or neglect.
  
Bushes of sweetbrier grew in fragrant little forests as tall as  
the fences. Clumps of wild roses sprang up at every turn, and  
over all the stone walls, as well as on every heap of rocks by  
the wayside, prickly blackberry vines ran and clambered and  
clung, yielding fruit and thorns impartially to the neighborhood  
children.
  
The pinkish speck that Stephen Waterman had spied from his side  
of the river was Rose Wiley of the Brier Neighborhood on the  
Edgewood side. As there was another of her name on Brigadier  
Hill, the Edgewood minister called one of them the climbing Rose  
and the other the brier Rose, or sometimes Rose of the river.  
She was well named, the pinkish speck. She had not only some of  
the sweetest attributes of the wild rose, but the parallel might  
have been extended as far as the thorns, for she had wounded her  
scores,--hearts, be it understood, not hands. The wounding was,  
on the whole, very innocently done; and if fault could be imputed  
anywhere, it might rightly have been laid at the door of the kind  
powers who had made her what she was, since the smile that  
blesses a single heart is always destined to break many more.  
  
She had not a single silk gown, but she had what is far better, a  
figure to show off a cotton one. Not a brooch nor a pair of  
earrings was numbered among her possessions, but any ordinary  
gems would have looked rather dull and trivial when compelled to  
undergo comparison with her bright eyes. As to her hair, the  
local milliner declared it impossible for Rose Wiley to get an  
unbecoming hat; that on one occasion, being in a frolicsome mood,  
Rose had tried on all the headgear in the village emporium,--  
children's gingham "Shakers," mourning bonnets for aged dames,  
men's haying hats and visored caps,--and she proved superior to  
every test, looking as pretty as a pink in the best ones and  
simply ravishing in the worst. In fact, she had been so  
fashioned and finished by Nature that, had she been set on a  
revolving pedestal in a show-window, the bystanders would have  
exclaimed, as each new charm came into view: "Look at her  
waist!"  "See her shoulders!"  "And her neck and chin!"  "And  
her hair!"   While the children, gazing with raptured admiration,  
would have shrieked, in unison, "I choose her for mine."  
  
All this is as much as to say that Rose of the river was a  
beauty, yet it quite fails to explain, nevertheless, the secret  
of her power. When she looked her worst the spell was as potent  
as when she looked her best. Hidden away somewhere was a vital  
spark which warmed every one who came in contact with it. Her  
lovely little person was a trifle below medium height, and it  
might as well be confessed that her soul, on the morning when  
Stephen Waterman saw her hanging out the clothes on the river  
bank, was not large enough to be at all out of proportion; but  
when eyes and dimples, lips and cheeks, enslave the onlooker, the  
soul is seldom subjected to a close or critical scrutiny.  
Besides, Rose Wiley was a nice girl, neat as wax, energetic,  
merry, amiable, economical. She was a dutiful granddaughter to  
two of the most irritating old people in the county; she never  
patronized her pug-nosed, pasty-faced girl friends; she made  
wonderful pies and doughnuts; and besides, small souls, if they  
are of the right sort, sometimes have a way of growing, to the  
discomfiture of cynics and the gratification of the angels.
  
So, on one bank of the river grew the brier rose, a fragile  
thing, swaying on a slender stalk and looking at its pretty  
reflection in the water; and on the other a sturdy pine tree,  
well rooted against wind and storm. And the sturdy pine yearned  
for the wild rose; and the rose, so far as it knew, yearned for  
nothing at all, certainly not for rugged pine trees standing tall  
and grim in rocky soil. If, in its present stage of development,  
it gravitated toward anything in particular, it would have been a  
well-dressed white birch growing on an irreproachable lawn.
  
And the river, now deep, now shallow, now smooth, now tumultuous,  
now sparkling in sunshine, now gloomy under clouds, rolled on to  
the engulfing sea. It could not stop to concern itself with the  
petty comedies and tragedies that were being enacted along its  
shores, else it would never have reached its destination. Only  
last night, under a full moon, there had been pairs of lovers  
leaning over the rails of all the bridges along its course; but  
that was a common sight, like that of the ardent couples sitting  
on its shady banks these summer days, looking only into each  
other's eyes, but exclaiming about the beauty of the water.  
Lovers would come and go, sometimes reappearing with successive  
installments of loves in a way wholly mysterious to the river.  
Meantime it had its own work to do and must be about it, for the  
side jams were to be broken and the boom "let out" at the  
Edgewood bridge.
  
  
  
OLD KENNEBEC  
  
It was just seven o'clock that same morning when Rose Wiley  
smoothed the last wrinkle from her dimity counterpane, picked up  
a shred of corn-husk from the spotless floor under the bed,  
slapped a mosquito on the window-sill, removed all signs of  
murder with a moist towel, and before running down to breakfast  
cast a frowning look at her pincushion. Almira, otherwise  
"Mite," Shapley had been in her room the afternoon before and  
disturbed with her careless hand the pattern of Rose's pins.  
They were kept religiously in the form of a Maltese cross; and  
if, while she was extricating one from her clothing, there had  
been an alarm of fire, Rose would have stuck the pin in its  
appointed place in the design, at the risk of losing her life.
  
Entering the kitchen with her light step, she brought the morning  
sunshine with her. The old people had already engaged in  
differences of opinion, but they commonly suspended open warfare  
in her presence. There were the usual last things to be done for  
breakfast, offices that belonged to her as her grandmother's  
assistant. She took yesterday's soda biscuits out of the steamer  
where they were warming and softening; brought an apple pie and a  
plate of seed cakes from the pantry; settled the coffee with a  
piece of dried fish skin and an egg shell; and transferred some  
fried potatoes from the spider to a covered dish.
  
"Did you remember the meat, grandpa? We're all out," she said, as  
she began buttoning a stiff collar around his reluctant neck.
  
"Remember? Land, yes! I wish't I ever could forgit anything!  
The butcher says he's 'bout tired o' travelin' over the country  
lookin' for critters to kill, but if he finds anything he'll be  
up along in the course of a week. He ain't a real smart butcher,  
Cyse Higgins ain't.--Land, Rose, don't button that dickey  
clean through my epperdummis! I have to sport starched collars  
in this life on account o' you and your gran'mother bein' so  
chock full o' style; but I hope to the Lord I shan't have to wear  
'em in another world!"  
  
"You won't," his wife responded with the snap of a dish towel, "or if you do,  
they'll wilt with the heat."  
  
Rose smiled, but the soft hand with which she tied the neck-cloth  
about the old man's withered neck pacified his spirit, and he  
smiled knowingly back at her as she took her seat at the  
breakfast table spread near the open kitchen door. She was a  
dazzling Rose, and, it is to be feared, a wasted one, for there  
was no one present to observe her clean pink calico and the still  
more subtle note struck in the green ribbon which was tied round  
her throat,--the ribbon that formed a sort of calyx, out of  
which sprang the flower of her face, as fresh and radiant as if  
it had bloomed that morning.
  
"Give me my coffee turrible quick," said Mr. Wiley; "I must be  
down the bridge 'fore they start dog-warpin' the side jam."  
  
"I notice you're always due at the bridge on churnin' days,"  
remarked his spouse, testily.
  
"'Taint me as app'ints drivin' dates at Edgewood," replied the  
old man. "The boys'll hev a turrible job this year. The logs air  
ricked up jest like Rose's jackstraws; I never see'em so turrible  
ricked up in all my exper'ence; an' Lije Dennett don' know no  
more 'bout pickin' a jam than Cooper's cow. Turrible sot in his  
ways, too; can't take a mite of advice. I was tellin' him how to  
go to work on that bung that's formed between the gre't gray rock  
an' the shore,--the awfullest place to bung that there is  
between this an' Biddeford,--and says he: 'Look here, I've  
be'n boss on this river for twelve year, an' I'll be doggoned if  
I'm goin' to be taught my business by any man!'  'This ain't no  
river,' says I, 'as you'd know,' says I, 'if you'd ever lived on  
the Kennebec.'  'Pity you hedn't stayed on it,' says he. 'I wish  
to the land I hed,'says I. An' then I come away, for my  
tongue's so turrible spry an' sarcustic that I knew if I stopped  
any longer I should stir up strife. There's some folks that'll  
set on addled aigs year in an' year out, as if there wan't good  
fresh ones bein' laid every day; an' Lije Dennett's one of 'em,  
when it comes to river drivin'."  
  
"There's lots o' folks as have made a good livin' by mindin'  
their own business," observed the still sententious Mrs. Wiley,  
as she speared a soda-biscuit with her fork.
  
"Mindin' your own business is a turrible selfish trade," responded  
her husband loftily. "If your neighbor is more ignorant than what  
you are,--partic'larly if he's as ignorant as Cooper's cow,--you'd  
ought, as a Kennebec man an' a Christian, to set him on the right  
track, though it's always a turrible risky thing to do."  
  
Rose's grandfather was called, by the irreverent younger  
generation, sometimes "Turrible Wiley" and sometimes "Old  
Kennebec," because of the frequency with which these words  
appeared in his conversation. There were not wanting those of  
late who dubbed him Uncle Ananias, for reasons too obvious to  
mention. After a long, indolent, tolerably truthful, and useless  
life, he had, at seventy-five, lost sight of the dividing line  
between fact and fancy, and drew on his imagination to such an  
extent that he almost staggered himself when he began to indulge  
in reminiscence. He was a feature of the Edgewood "drive," being  
always present during the five or six days that it was in  
progress, sometimes sitting on the river-bank, sometimes leaning  
over the bridge, sometimes reclining against the butt-end of a  
huge log, but always chewing tobacco and expectorating to  
incredible distances as he criticized and damned impartially all  
the expedients in use at the particular moment.
  
"I want to stay down by the river this afternoon," said Rose.  
"Ever so many of the girls will be there, and all my sewing is  
done up. If grandpa will leave the horse for me, I'll take the  
drivers' lunch to them at noon, and bring the dishes back in time  
to wash them before supper."  
  
"I suppose you can go, if the rest do," said her grandmother,  
"though it's an awful lazy way of spendin' an afternoon. When I  
was a girl there was no such dawdlin' goin' on, I can tell you.  
Nobody thought o' lookin' at the river in them days; there wasn't  
time."  
  
"But it's such fun to watch the logs!" Rose exclaimed. "Next to  
dancing, the greatest fun in the world."  
  
"'Specially as all the young men in town will be there, watchin',  
too," was the grandmother's reply. "Eben Brooks an' Richard Bean  
got home yesterday with their doctors' diplomas in their pockets.  
Mrs. Brooks says Eben stood forty-nine in a class o' fifty-five,  
an' seemed consid'able proud of him; an' I guess it is the first  
time he ever stood anywheres but at the foot. I tell you when  
these fifty-five new doctors git scattered over the country  
there'll be consid'able many folks keepin' house under ground.  
Dick Bean's goin' to stop a spell with Rufe an' Steve Waterman.  
That'll make one more to play in the river."  
  
"Rufus ain't hardly got his workin' legs on yit," allowed  
Mr.Wiley, "but Steve's all right. He's a turrible smart driver,  
an' turrible reckless, too. He'll take all the chances there is,  
though to a man that's lived on the Kennebec there ain't what can  
rightly be called any turrible chances on the Saco."  
  
"He'd better be 'tendin' to his farm," objected Mrs. Wiley.
  
"His hay is all in," Rose spoke up quickly, "and he only helps  
on the river when the farm work isn't pressing. Besides, though  
it's all play to him, he earns his two dollars and a half a day."  
  
"He don't keer about the two and a half," said her grandfather.  
"He jest can't keep away from the logs. There's some that can't.  
When I first moved here from Gard'ner, where the climate never  
suited me"--  
  
"The climate of any place where you hev regular work never did  
an' never will suit you," remarked the old man's wife; but the  
interruption received no comment: such mistaken views of his  
character were too frequent to make any impression.
  
"As I was sayin', Rose," he continued, "when we first moved here  
from Gard'ner, we lived neighbor to the Watermans. Steve an'  
Rufus was little boys then, always playin' with a couple o' wild  
cousins o' theirn, consid'able older. Steve would scare his  
mother pretty nigh to death stealin' away to the mill to ride on  
the 'carriage,''side o' the log that was bein' sawed, hitchin'  
clean out over the river an' then jerkin' back 'most into the  
jaws o' the machinery."  
  
"He never hed any common sense to spare, even when he was a young  
one," remarked Mrs. Wiley; " and I don't see as all the 'cademy  
education his father throwed away on him has changed him much."   
And with this observation she rose from the table and went to the  
sink.
  
"Steve ain't nobody's fool," dissented the old man; "but he's  
kind o' daft about the river. When he was little he was allers  
buildin' dams in the brook, an' sailin' chips, an' runnin' on the  
logs; allers choppin' up stickins an' raftin' 'em together in the  
pond. I cal'late Mis' Waterman died consid'able afore her time,  
jest from fright, lookin' out the winders and seein' her boys  
slippin' between the logs an' gittin' their daily dousin'. She  
could n't understand it, an' there's a heap o' things women-folks  
never do an' never can understand,--jest because they air  
women-folks."  
  
"One o' the things is men, I s'pose," interrupted Mrs. Wiley.
  
"Men in general, but more partic'larly husbands," assented Old  
Kennebec; "howsomever, there's another thing they don't an' can't  
never take in, an' that's sport. Steve does river drivin' as he  
would horseracin' or tiger-shootin' or tight-rope dancin'; an' he  
always did from a boy. When he was about twelve or fifteen, he  
used to help the river-drivers spring and fall, reg'lar. He  
couldn't do nothin' but shin up an' down the rocks after hammers  
an' hatchets an' ropes, but he was turrible pleased with his job.  
'Stepanfetchit,' they used to call him them days,  
--Stephanfetchit Waterman."  
  
"Good name for him yet," came in acid tones from the sink. "He's  
still steppin' an' fetchin', only it's Rose that's doin' the  
drivin' now."  
  
"I'm not driving anybody, that I know of," answered Rose, with  
heightened color, but with no loss of her habitual self-command.  
  
"Then, when he graduated from errants," went on the crafty old  
man, who knew that when breakfast ceased, churning must begin,  
"Steve used to get seventy-five cents a day helpin' clear up the  
river--if you can call this here silv'ry streamlet a river.
He'd pick off a log here an' there an' send it afloat, an' dig  
out them that hed got ketched in the rocks, and tidy up the banks  
jest like spring house-cleanin'. If he'd hed any kind of a boss,  
an' hed be'n trained on the Kennebec, he'd 'a' made a turrible  
smart driver, Steve would."  
  
"He'll be drownded, that's what'll become o' him," prophesied  
Mrs. Wiley; "'specially if Rose encourages him in such silly  
foolishness as ridin' logs from his house down to ourn, dark  
nights."  
  
"Seein' as how Steve built ye a nice pig  pen last month, 'pears  
to me you might  have a good word for him now an' then,  mother,"  
remarked Old Kennebec, reaching  for his second piece of pie.
  
"I wa'n't a mite deceived by that pig pen, no more'n I was by Jed  
Towle's hen coop, nor Ivory Dunn's well-curb, nor Pitt Packard's  
shed-steps. If you hed ever kep' up your buildin's yourself,  
Rose's beaux  wouldn't hev to do their courtin' with carpenters'  
tools."  
  
"It's the pigpen an' the hencoop you  want to keep your eye on,  
mother, not the motives of them as made 'em. It's turrible  
onsettlin' to inspeck folks' motives too turrible close."  
  
"Riding a log is no more to Steve than riding a horse, so he  
says," interposed Rose, to change the subject; "but I tell him  
that a horse doesn't revolve under you, and go sideways at the  
same time that it is going forwards."  
  
"Log-ridin' ain't no trick at all to a man of sperit," said Mr.
Wiley. "There's a few places in the Kennebec where the water's  
too shaller to let the logs float, so we used to build a flume,  
an' the logs would whiz down like arrers shot from a bow. The  
boys used to collect by the side o' that there flume to see me  
ride a log down, an' I've watched 'em drop in a dead faint when I  
spun by the crowd; but land! you can't drownd some folks, not  
without you tie nail-kegs to their head an' feet an' drop 'em in  
the falls; I 've rid logs down the b'ilin'est rapids o' the  
Kennebec an' never lost my head. I remember well the year o' the  
gre't freshet, I rid a log from"--  
  
"There, there, father, that'll do," said Mrs. Wiley, decisively.  
"I'll put the cream in the churn, an' you jest work off some o'  
your steam by bringin' the butter for us afore you start for the  
bridge. It don't do no good to brag afore your own womenfolks;  
work goes consid'able better'n stories at every place 'cept the  
loafers' bench at the tavern."  
  
And the baffled raconteur, who had never done a piece of work  
cheerfully in his life, dragged himself reluctantly to the shed,  
where, before long, one could hear him moving the dasher up and  
down sedately to his favorite "churning tune" of--  
  
Broad is the road that leads to death,  
And thousands walk together there;   
But Wisdom shows a narrow path,   
With here and there a traveler.
  
  
  
THE EDGEWOOD "DRIVE"  
  
Just where the bridge knits together the two little villages of  
Pleasant River and Edgewood, the glassy mirror of the Saco  
broadens suddenly, sweeping over the dam in a luminous torrent.  
Gushes of pure amber mark the middle of the dam, with crystal and  
silver at the sides, and from the seething vortex beneath the  
golden cascade the white spray dashes up in fountains. In the  
crevices and hollows of the rocks the mad water churns itself  
into snowy froth, while the foam-decked torrent, deep, strong,  
and troubled to its heart, sweeps majestically under the bridge,  
then dashes between wooded shores piled high with steep masses of  
rock, or torn and riven by great gorges.
  
There had been much rain during the summer, and the Saco was very  
high, so on the third day of the Edgewood drive there was  
considerable excitement at the bridge, and a goodly audience of  
villagers from both sides of the river. There were some who  
never came, some who had no fancy for the sight, some to whom it  
was an old story, some who were too busy, but there were many to  
whom- it was the event of events, a never-ending source of  
interest.
  
Above the fall, covering the placid surface of the river,  
thousands of logs lay quietly "in boom" until the "turning out"  
process, on the last day of the drive, should release them and  
give them their chance of display, their brief moment of  
notoriety, their opportunity of interesting, amusing, exciting,  
and exasperating the onlookers by their antics.
  
Heaps of logs had been cast up on the rocks below the dam, where  
they lay in hopeless confusion, adding nothing, however, to the  
problem of the moment, for they too bided their time. If they  
had possessed wisdom, discretion, and caution, they might have  
slipped gracefully over the falls and, steering clear of the  
hidden ledges (about which it would seem they must have heard  
whispers from the old pine trees along the river), have kept a  
straight course and reached their destination without costing the  
Edgewood Lumber Company a small fortune. Or, if they had  
inclined toward a jolly and adventurous career, they could have  
joined one of the various jams or "bungs," stimulated by the  
thought that any one of them might be a key-log, holding for a  
time the entire mass in its despotic power. But they had been  
stranded early in the game, and, after lying high and dry for  
weeks, would be picked off one by one and sent down-stream.
  
In the tumultuous boil, the foaming hubbub and flurry at the foot  
of the falls, one enormous peeled log wallowed up and down like a  
huge rhinoceros, greatly pleasing the children by its clumsy  
cavortings. Some conflict of opposing forces kept it ever in  
motion, yet never set it free. Below the bridge were always the  
real battle-grounds, the scenes of the first and the fiercest  
conflicts. A ragged ledge of rock, standing well above the  
yeasty torrent, marked the middle of the river. Stephen had been  
stranded there once, just at dusk, on a stormy afternoon in  
spring. A jam had broken under the men, and Stephen, having  
taken too great risks, had been caught on the moving mass, and,  
leaping from log to log, his only chance for life had been to  
find a footing on Gray Rock, which was nearer than the shore.
  
Rufus was ill at the time, and Mrs. Waterman so anxious and  
nervous that processions of boys had to be sent up to the River  
Farm, giving the frightened mother the latest bulletins of her  
son's welfare. Luckily, the river was narrow just at the Gray  
Rock, and it was a quite possible task, though no easy one, to  
lash two ladders together and make a narrow bridge on which the  
drenched and shivering man could reach the shore. There were  
loud cheers when Stephen ran lightly across the slender pathway  
that led to safety--ran so fast that the ladders had scarce time  
to bend beneath his weight. He had certainly "taken chances," but  
when did he not do that? The logger's life is one of "moving  
accidents by flood and field," and Stephen welcomed with wild  
exhilaration every hazard that came in his path. To him there  
was never a dull hour from the moment that the first notch was  
cut in the tree (for he sometimes joined the boys in the lumber  
camp just for a frolic) till the later one when the hewn log  
reached its final destination. He knew nothing of "tooling" a  
four-in-hand through narrow lanes or crowded thoroughfares,--  
nothing of guiding a horse over the hedges and through the  
pitfalls of a stiff bit of hunting country; his steed was the  
rearing, plunging, kicking log, and he rode it like a river god.
  
The crowd loves daring, and so it welcomed Stephen with braves,  
but it knew, as he knew, that he was only doing his duty by the  
Company, only showing the Saco that man was master, only keeping  
the old Waterman name in good repute.
  
"Ye can't drownd some folks," Old Kennebec had said, as he stood  
in a group on the shore; "not without you tie sand-bags to'em an'  
drop 'em in the Great Eddy. I'm the same kind; I remember when I  
was stranded on jest sech a rock in the Kennebec, only they left  
me there all night for dead, an' I had to swim the rapids when it  
come daylight."  
  
"We're well acquainted with that rock and them rapids," exclaimed  
one of the river-drivers, to the delight of the company.
  
Rose had reason to remember Stephen's adventure, for he had  
clambered up the bank, smiling and blushing under the hurrahs of  
the boys, and, coming to the wagon where she sat waiting for her  
grandfather, had seized a moment to whisper: "Did you care  
whether I came across safe, Rose? Say you did!"  
  
Stephen recalled that question, too, on this August morning;  
perhaps because this was to be a red-letter day, and sometime,  
when he had a free moment,--sometime before supper, when he and  
Rose were sitting apart from the others, watching the logs,--he  
intended again to ask her to marry him. This thought trembled in  
him, stirring the deeps of his heart like a great wave, almost  
sweeping him off his feet when he held it too close and let it  
have full sway. It would be the fourth time that he had asked  
Rose this question of all questions, but there was no perceptible  
difference in his excitement, for there was always the possible  
chance that she might change her mind and say yes, if only for  
variety. Wanting a thing continuously, unchangingly, unceasingly,  
year after year, he thought,--longing to reach it as the river  
longed to reach the sea,--such wanting might, in course of  
time, mean having.
  
Rose drove up to the bridge with the men's luncheon, and the  
under boss came up to take the baskets and boxes from the back of  
the wagon.
  
"We've had a reg'lar tussle this mornin', Rose," he said. "The  
logs are determined not to move. Ike Billings, that's the  
han'somest and fluentest all-round swearer on the Saco, has tried  
his best on the side jam. He's all out o' cuss-words and there  
hain't a log budged. Now, stid o' dogwarpin' this afternoon, an'  
lettin' the oxen haul off all them stubborn logs by main force,  
we're goin' to ask you to set up on the bank and smile at the  
jam. 'Land! she can do it!' says Ike a minute ago. 'When Rose  
starts smilin',' he says, 'there ain't a jam nor a bung in me  
that don't melt like wax and jest float right off same as the  
logs do when they get into quiet, sunny water.'"  
  
Rose blushed and laughed, and drove up the hill to Mite  
Shapley's, where she put up the horse and waited till the men had  
eaten their luncheon. The drivers slept and had breakfast and  
supper at the Billings house, a mile down river, but for several  
years Mrs. Wiley had furnished the noon meal, sending it down  
piping hot on the stroke of twelve. The boys always said that up  
or down the whole length of the Saco there was no such cooking as  
the Wileys', and much of this praise was earned by Rose's  
serving. It was the old grandmother who burnished the tin plates  
and dippers till they looked like silver; for crotchety and  
sharp-tongued as she was--she never allowed Rose to spoil her  
hands with soft soap and sand: but it was Rose who planned and  
packed, Rose who hemmed squares of old white tablecloths and  
sheets to line the baskets and keep things daintily separate,  
Rose, also, whose tarts and cakes were the pride and admiration  
of church sociables and sewing societies.
  
Where could such smoking pots of beans be found? A murmur of  
ecstatic approval ran through the crowd when the covers were  
removed. Pieces of sweet home-fed pork glistened like varnished  
mahogany on the top of the beans, and underneath were such deeps  
of fragrant juice as come only from slow fires and long, quiet  
hours in brick ovens. Who else could steam and bake such mealy  
leaves of brown bread, brown as plum-pudding, yet with no  
suspicion of sogginess? Who such soda-biscuits, big, feathery,  
tasting of cream, and hardly needing butter? And green-apple  
pies! Could such candied lower crusts be found elsewhere,or more  
delectable filling? Or such rich, nutty doughnuts?--doughnuts  
that had spurned the hot fat which is the ruin of so many, and  
risen from its waves like golden-brown Venuses.
  
"By the great seleckmen!" ejaculated Jed Towle, as he swallowed  
his fourth, "I'd like to hev a wife, two daughters, and four  
sisters like them Wileys, and jest set still on the river-bank  
an' hev 'em cook victuals for me. I'd hev nothin' to wish for  
then but a mouth as big as the Saco's."  
  
"And I wish this custard pie was the size o' Bonnie Eagle Pond,"  
said Ike Billings. "I'd like to fall into the middle of it and  
eat my way out!"  
  
"Look at that bunch o' Chiny asters tied on t' the bail o' that  
biscuit-pail!" said Ivory Dunn. "That's the girl's doin's, you  
bet women-folks don't seem to make no bo'quets after they git  
married. Let's divide 'em up an' wear 'em drivin' this  
afternoon; mebbe they'll ketch the eye so't our rags won't show  
so bad. Land! it's lucky my hundred days is about up! If I  
don't git home soon, I shall be arrested for goin' without  
clo'es. I set up'bout all night puttin' these blue patches in my  
pants an' tryin' to piece together a couple of old red-flannel  
shirts to make one whole one. That's the worst o' drivin' in  
these places where the pretty girls make a habit of comin' down  
to the bridge to see the fun. You hev to keep rigged up jest so  
stylish; you can't git no chance at the rum bottle, an' you even  
hev to go a leetle mite light on swearin'."  
  
  
  
"BLASPHEMIOUS SWEARIN'"  
  
"Steve Waterman's an awful nice feller," exclaimed Ivory Dunn just  
then. Stephen had been looking intently across the river,  
watching the Shapleys' side door, from which Rose might issue at  
any moment; and at this point in the discussion he had lounged  
away from the group, and, moving toward the bridge, began to  
throw pebbles idly into the water.  
  
"He's an awful smart driver for one that don't foiler drivin' the  
year round," continued Ivory; "and he's the awfullest  
clean-spoken, soft-spoken feller I ever see."  
  
"There's be'n two black sheep in his family a'ready, an' Steve  
kind o' feels as if he'd ought to be extry white," remarked Jed  
Towle. "You fellers that belonged to the old drive remember  
Pretty Quick Waterman well enough? Steve's mother brought him  
up."  
  
Yes; most of them remembered the Waterman twins, Stephen's  
cousins, now both dead,--Slow Waterman, so moderate in his  
steps and actions that you had to fix a landmark somewhere near  
him to see if he moved; and Pretty Quick, who shone by comparison  
with his twin.
  
"I'd kind o' forgot that Pretty Quick Waterman was cousin to  
Steve," said the under boss; "he never worked with me much, but  
he wa'n't cut off the same piece o' goods as the other Watermans.  
Great hemlock! but he kep' a cussin' dictionary, Pretty Quick  
did! Whenever he heard any new words he must 'a' writ 'em down,  
an' then studied 'em all up in the winter-time, to use in the  
spring drive."  
  
"Swearin''s a habit that hed ought to be practiced with turrible  
caution," observed old Mr. Wiley, when the drivers had finished  
luncheon and taken out their pipes. "There's three kinds o'  
swearin',--plain swearin', profane swearin', an' blasphemious  
swearin'. Logs air jest like mules: there's times when a man  
can't seem to rip up a jam in good style 'thout a few words  
that's too strong for the infant classes in Sunday-schools; but a  
man hedn't ought to tempt Providence. When he's ridin' a log  
near the falls at high water, or cuttin' the key-log in a jam, he  
ain't in no place for blasphemious swearin'; jest a little easy,  
perlite'damn' is 'bout all he can resk, if he don't want to git  
drownded an' hev his ghost walkin' the river-banks till kingdom  
come.
  
"You an' I, Long, was the only ones that seen Pretty Quick go,  
wa'n't we?"  continued Old Kennebec, glancing at Long Abe  
Dennett (cousin to Short Abe), who lay on his back in the grass,  
the smoke-wreaths rising from his pipe, and the steel spikes in  
his heavy, calked-sole boots shining in the sun.
  
"There was folks on the bridge," Long answered, "but we was the  
only ones near enough to see an' hear. It was so onexpected, an'  
so soon over, that them as was watchin' upstream, where the men  
was to work on the falls, wouldn't 'a' hed time to see him go  
down. But I did, an' nobody ain't heard me swear sence, though  
it's ten years ago. I allers said it was rum an' bravadder that  
killed Pretty Quick Waterman that day. The boys hedn't give him  
a 'dare' that he hedn't took up. He seemed like he was  
possessed, an' the logs was the same way; they was fairly wild,  
leapin' around in the maddest kind o' water you ever see. The  
river was b'ilin' high that spring; it was an awful stubborn jam,  
an' Pretty Quick, he'd be'n workin' on it sence dinner."  
  
"He clumb up the bank more'n once to have a pull at the bottle  
that was hid in the bushes," interpolated Mr. Wiley.
  
"Like as not; that was his failin'. Well, most o' the boys were  
on the other side o' the river, workin' above the bridge, an' the  
boss hed called Pretty Quick to come off an' leave the jam till  
mornin', when they'd get horses an' dog-warp it off, log by log.  
But when the boss got out o' sight, Pretty Quick jest stood right  
still, swingin' his axe, an' blasphemin' so 't would freeze your  
blood, vowin' he wouldn't move till the logs did, if he stayed  
there till the crack o' doom. Jest then a great, ponderous log  
that hed be'n churnin' up an' down in the falls for a week, got  
free an' come blunderin' an' thunderin' down-river. Land! it  
was chockfull o' water, an' looked 'bout as big as a church! It  
come straight along, butt-end foremost, an' struck that jam, full  
force, so't every log in it shivered. There was a crack,--the  
crack o' doom, sure enough, for Pretty Quick,--an' one o' the  
logs le'p' right out an' struck him jest where he stood, with his  
axe in the air, blasphemin'. The jam kind o' melted an' crumbled  
up, an' in a second Pretty Quick was whirlin' in the white water.  
He never riz,--at least where we could see him,--an' we  
didn't find him for a week. That's the whole story, an' I guess  
Steve takes it as a warnin'. Any way, he ain't no friend to rum  
nor swearin', Steve ain't. He knows Pretty Quick's ways  
shortened his mother's life, an' you notice what a sharp lookout  
he keeps on Rufus."  
  
"He needs it," Ike Billings commented tersely.
  
"Some men seem to lose their wits when they're workin' on logs,"  
observed Mr. Wiley, who had deeply resented Long Dennett's  
telling of a story which he knew fully as well and could have  
told much better. "Now, nat'rally, I've seen things on the  
Kennebec "--  
  
"Three cheers for the Saco! Hats off, boys!" shouted Jed Towle,  
and his directions were followed with a will.
  
"As I was sayin'," continued the old man, peacefully, "I've seen  
things on the Kennebec that wouldn't happen on a small river,  
an' I've be'n in turrible places an' taken turrible resks--  
resks that would 'a' turned a Saco River man's hair white; but  
them is the times when my wits work the quickest. I remember  
once I was smokin' my pipe when a jam broke under me. 'T was a  
small jam, or what we call a small jam on the Kennebec,--only  
about three hundred thousand pine logs. The first thing I  
knowed, I was shootin' back an' forth in the b'ilin' foam,  
hangin' on t' the end of a log like a spider. My hands was  
clasped round the log, and I never lost control o' my pipe. They  
said I smoked right along, jest as cool an' placid as a  
pond-lily."  
  
"Why'd you quit drivin'?" inquired Ivory.
  
"My strength wa'n't ekal to it," Mr. Wiley responded sadly. "I  
was all skin, bones, an' nerve. The Comp'ny wouldn't part with  
me altogether, so they give me a place in the office down on the  
wharves."  
  
"That wa'n't so bad," said Jed Towle; "why didn't you hang on to  
it, so's to keep in sight o' the Kennebec?"  
  
"I found I couldn't be confined under cover. My liver give all  
out, my appetite failed me, an' I wa'n't wuth a day's wages. I'd  
learned engineerin' when I was a boy, an' I thought I'd try  
runnin' on the road a spell, but it didn't suit my constitution.  
My kidneys ain't turrible strong, an' the doctors said I'd have  
Bright's disease if I didn't git some kind o' work where there  
wa'n't no vibrations."  
  
"Hard to find, Mr. Wiley; hard to find!" said Jed Towle.
  
"You're right," responded the old man feelingly. "I've tried all  
kinds o' labor. Some of 'em don't suit my liver, some disagrees  
with my stomach, and the rest of 'em has vibrations; so here I  
set, high an' dry on the banks of life, you might say, like a  
stranded log."  
  
As this well-known simile fell upon the ear, there was a general  
stir in the group, for Turrible Wiley, when rhetorical, sometimes  
grew tearful, and this was a mood not to be encouraged.
  
"All right, boss," called Ike Billings, winking to the boys;  
"we'll be there in a jiffy!" for the luncheon hour had flown, and  
the work of the afternoon was waiting for them. "You make a  
chalk-mark where you left off, Mr. Wiley, an' we'll hear the rest  
to-morrer; only don't you forgit nothin'! Remember't was the  
Kennebec you was talkin' about."  
  
"I will, indeed," responded the old man. "As I was sayin' when  
interrupted, I may be a stranded log, but I'm proud that the mark  
o' the Gard'ner Lumber Comp'ny is on me, so't when I git to my  
journey's end they'll know where I belong and send me back to the  
Kennebec. Before I'm sawed up I'd like to forgit this triflin'  
brook in the sight of a good-sized river, an' rest my eyes on  
some full-grown logs,'stead o' these little damn pipestems you  
boys are playin' with!"  
  
  
  
THE GAME OF JACKSTRAWS  
  
There was a roar of laughter at the old man's boast, but in a  
moment all was activity. The men ran hither and thither like  
ants, gathering their tools. There were some old-fashioned  
pickpoles, straight, heavy levers without any "dog," and there  
were modern pickpoles and peaveys, for every river has its  
favorite equipment in these things. There was no dynamite in  
those days to make the stubborn jams yield, and the dog-warp was  
in general use. Horses or oxen, sometimes a line of men, stood  
on the river-bank. A long rope was attached by means of a steel  
spike to one log after another, and it was dragged from the  
tangled mass. Sometimes, after unloading the top logs, those at  
the bottom would rise and make the task easier; sometimes the  
work would go on for hours with no perceptible progress, and Mr.
Wiley would have opportunity to tell the bystanders of a  
"turrible jam" on the Kennebec that had cost the Lumber Company  
ten thousand dollars to break.
  
There would be great arguments on shore, among the villagers as  
well as among the experts, as to the particular log which might  
be a key to the position. The boss would study the problem from  
various standpoints, and the drivers themselves would pass from  
heated discussion into long consultations.
  
"They're paid by the day," Old Kennebec would philosophize to the  
doctor; "an' when they're consultin' they don't hev to be  
doggin', which is a turrible sight harder work."  
  
Rose had created a small sensation, on one occasion, by pointing  
out to the under boss the key-log in a jam. She was past  
mistress of the pretty game of jackstraws, much in vogue at that  
time. The delicate little lengths of polished wood or bone were  
shaken together and emptied on the table. Each jackstraw had one  
of its ends fashioned in the shape of some sort of implement,--  
a rake, hoe, spade, fork, or mallet. All the pieces were  
intertwined by the shaking process, and they lay as they fell, in  
a hopeless tangle. The task consisted in taking a tiny pickpole,  
scarcely bigger than a match, and with the bit of curved wire on  
the end lifting off the jackstraws one by one without stirring  
the pile or making it tremble. When this occurred, you gave  
place to your opponent, who relinquished his turn to you when ill  
fortune descended upon him, the game, which was a kind of  
river-driving and jam-picking in miniature, being decided by the  
number of pieces captured and their value. No wonder that the  
under boss asked Rose's advice as to the key-log. She had a  
fairy's hand, and her cunning at deciding the pieces to be moved,  
and her skill at extricating and lifting them from the heap, were  
looked upon in Edgewood as little less than supernatural. It was  
a favorite pastime; and although a man's hand is ill adapted to  
it, being over-large and heavy; the game has obvious advantages  
for a lover in bringing his head very close to that of his  
beloved adversary. The jackstraws have to be watched with a  
hawk's eagerness, since the "trembling" can be discerned only by  
a keen eye; but there were moments when Stephen was willing to  
risk the loss of a battle if he could watch Rose's drooping  
eyelashes, the delicate down on her pink cheek, and the feathery  
curls that broke away from her hair.
  
He was looking at her now from a distance, for she and Mite  
Shapley were assisting Jed Towle to pile up the tin plates and  
tie the tin dippers together. Next she peered into one of the  
bean-pots, and seemed pleased that there was still something in  
its depths; then she gathered the fragments neatly together in a  
basket, and, followed by her friend, clambered down the banks to  
a shady spot where the Boomshers, otherwise known as the Crambry  
family, were "lined up" expectantly.
  
It is not difficult to find a single fool in any community,  
however small; but a family of fools is fortunately somewhat  
rarer. Every county, however, can boast of one fool-family, and  
Itork County is always in the fashion, with fools as with  
everything else. The unique, much-quoted, and undesirable  
Boomshers could not be claimed as indigenous to the Saco valley,  
for this branch was an offshoot of a still larger tribe  
inhabiting a distant township. Its beginnings were shrouded in  
mystery. There was a French-Canadian ancestor somewhere, and a  
Gipsy or Indian grandmother. They had always intermarried from  
time immemorial. When one of the selectmen of their native place  
had been asked why the Boomshers always married cousins, and why  
the habit was not discouraged, he replied that he really didn't  
know; he s'posed they felt it would be kind of odd to go right  
out and marry a stranger.
  
Lest "Boomsher" seem an unusual surname, it must be explained  
that the actual name was French and could not be coped with by  
Edgewood or Pleasant River, being something quite as impossible  
to spell as to pronounce. As the family had lived for the last  
few years somewhere near the Killick Cranberry Meadows, they were  
called--and completely described in the calling--the Crambry  
fool-family. A talented and much traveled gentleman who once  
stayed over night at the Edgewood tavern, proclaimed it his  
opinion that Boomsher had been gradually corrupted from  
Beaumarchais. When he wrote the word on his visiting card and  
showed it to Mr. Wiley, Old Kennebec had replied, that in the  
judgment of a man who had lived in large places and seen a  
turrible lot o' life, such a name could never have been given  
either to a Christian or a heathen family,--that the way in  
which the letters was thrown together into it, and the way in  
which they was sounded when read out loud, was entirely ag'in  
reason. It was true, he said, that Beaumarchais, bein' such a  
fool name, might 'a' be'n invented a-purpose for a fool family,  
but he wouldn't hold even with callin' 'em Boomsher; Crambry was  
well enough for'em an' a sight easier to speak.
  
Stephen knew a good deal about the Crambrys, for he passed their  
so-called habitation in going to one of his wood-lots. It was  
only a month before that he had found them all sitting outside  
their broken-down fence, surrounded by decrepit chairs, sofas,  
tables, bedsteads, bits of carpet, and stoves.  
  
"What's the matter?" he called out from his wagon.
  
"There ain't nothin' the matter," said Alcestis Crambry.
"Father's dead, an we're dividin' up the furnerchure."  
  
Alcestis was the pride of the Crambrys, and the list of his  
attainments used often to be on his proud father's lips. It was  
he who was the largest, "for his size," in the family; he who  
could tell his brothers Paul and Arcadus "by their looks;" he who  
knew a sour apple from a sweet one the minute he bit it; he who,  
at the early age of ten, was bright enough to point to the  
cupboard and say, "Puddin', dad!"  
  
Alcestis had enjoyed, in consequence of his unusual intellectual  
powers, some educational privileges, and the Killick  
schoolmistress well remembered his first day at the village seat  
of learning. Reports of what took place in this classic temple  
from day to day may have been wafted to the dull ears of the boy,  
who was not thought ready for school until he had attained the  
ripe age of twelve. It may even have been that specific rumors  
of the signs, symbols, and hieroglyphics used in educational  
institutions had reached him in the obscurity of his cranberry  
meadows. At all events, when confronted by the alphabet chart,  
whose huge black capitals were intended to capture the wandering  
eyes of the infant class, Alcestis exhibited unusual, almost  
unnatural, excitement.
  
"That is 'A,' my boy," said the teacher genially, as she pointed  
to the first character on the chart.
  
"Good God, is that 'A'! " exclaimed Alcestis, sitting down  
heavily on the nearest bench. And neither teacher nor scholars  
could discover whether he was agreeably surprised or disappointed  
in the letter,--whether he had expected, if he ever encountered  
it, to find it writhing in coils on the floor of a cage, or  
whether it simply bore no resemblance to the ideal already  
established in his mind.
  
Mrs. Wiley had once tried to make something of Mercy, the oldest  
daughter of the family, but at the end of six weeks she announced  
that a girl who couldn't tell whether the clock was going  
"forrards or backwards," and who rubbed a pocket handkerchief as  
long as she did a sheet, would be no help in her household.
  
The Crambrys had daily walked the five or six miles from their  
home to the Edgewood bridge during the progress of the drive, not  
only for the social and intellectual advantages to be gained from  
the company present, but for the more solid compensation of a  
good meal. They all adored Rose, partly because she gave them  
food, and partly because she was sparkling and pretty and wore  
pink dresses that caught their dull eyes.
  
The afternoon proved a lively one. In the first place, one of  
the younger men slipped into the water between two logs, part of  
a lot chained together waiting to be let out of the boom. The  
weight of the mass higher up and the force of the current wedged  
him in rather tightly, and when he had been "pried" out he  
declared that he felt like an apple after it had been squeezed in  
the cider-mill, so he drove home, and Rufus Waterman took his  
place.
  
Two hours' hard work followed this incident, and at the end of  
that time the "bung" that reached from the shore to Waterman's  
Ledge (the rock where Pretty Quick met his fate) was broken up,  
and the logs that composed it were started down river. There  
remained now only the great side-jam at Gray Rock. This had been  
allowed to grow, gathering logs as they drifted past, thus making  
higher water and a stronger current on the other side of the  
rock, and allowing an easier passage for the logs at that point.
  
All was excitement now, for, this particular piece of work  
accomplished, the boom above the falls would be "turned out," and  
the river would once more be clear and clean at the Edgewood  
bridge.
  
Small boys, perching on the rocks with their heels hanging, hands  
and mouths full of red Astrakhan apples, cheered their favorites  
to the echo, while the drivers shouted to one another and watched  
the signs and signals of the boss, who could communicate with  
them only in that way, so great was the roar of the water.
  
The jam refused to yield to ordinary measures. It was a  
difficult problem, for the rocky river-bed held many a snare and  
pitfall. There was a certain ledge under the water, so artfully  
placed that every log striking under its projecting edges would  
wedge itself firmly there, attracting others by its evil example.
  
"That galoot-boss ought to hev shoved his crew down to that jam  
this mornin'," grumbled Old Kennebec to Alcestis Crambry, who was  
always his most loyal and attentive listener. "But he wouldn't  
take no advice, not if Pharaoh nor Boat nor Herod nor Nicodemus  
come right out o' the Bible an' give it to him. The logs air  
contrary to-day. Sometimes they'll go along as easy as an old  
shoe, an' other times they'll do nothin' but bung, bung, bung!  
There's a log nestlin' down in the middle o' that jam that I've  
be'n watchin' for a week. It's a cur'ous one, to begin with; an'  
then it has a mark on it that you can reco'nize it by. Did ye  
ever hear tell o' George the Third, King of England, Alcestis, or  
ain't he known over to the crambry medders? Well, once upon a  
time men used to go through the forests over here an' slash a  
mark on the trunks o' the biggest trees. That was the royal  
sign, as you might say, an' meant that the tree was to be taken  
over to England to make masts an' yard-arms for the King's ships.  
What made me think of it now is that the King's mark was an  
arrer, an' it's an arrer that's on that there log I'm showin' ye.  
Well, sir, I seen it fust at Milliken's Mills a Monday. It was  
in trouble then, an'it's be'n in trouble ever sence. That's  
allers the way; there'll be one pesky, crooked, contrary,  
consarn'ed log that can't go anywheres without gittin' into  
difficulties. You can yank it out an' set it afloat, an' before  
you hardly git your doggin' iron off of it, it'll be snarled up  
agin in some new place. From the time it's chopped down to the  
day it gets to Saco, it costs the Comp'ny 'bout ten times its  
pesky valler as lumber. Now they've sent over to Benson's for a  
team of horses, an' I bate ye they can't git'em. I wish I was  
the boss on this river, Alcestis."   
  
"I wish I was," echoed the boy.
  
"Well, your head-fillin' ain't the right kind for a boss,  
Alcestis, an' you'd better stick to dry land. You set right down  
here while I go back a piece an' git the pipe out o' my coat  
pocket. I guess nothin' ain't goin' to happen for a few  
minutes."  
  
The surmise about the horses, unlike most of Old Kennebec's,  
proved to be true. Benson's pair had gone to Portland with a  
load of hay; accordingly the tackle was brought, the rope was  
adjusted to a log, and five of the drivers, standing on the  
riverbank, attempted to drag it from its intrenched position. It  
refused to yield the fraction of an inch. Rufus and Stephen  
joined the five men, and the augmented crew of seven were putting  
all their strength on the rope when a cry went up from the  
watchers on the bridge. The "dog" had loosened suddenly, and the  
men were flung violently to the ground. For a second they were  
stunned both by the surprise and by the shock of the blow, but in  
the same moment the cry of the crowd swelled louder.
  
Alcestis Crambry had stolen, all unoticed, to the rope and had  
attempted to use his feeble powers for the common good. When  
then blow came he fell backward, and, making no effort to control  
the situation, slid over the bank and into the water.  
  
The other Crambrys, not realizing the danger, laughed, audibly,  
but there was no jeering from the bridge.
  
Stephan had seen Alcestis slip, and in the fraction of a moment  
had taken off his boots and was coasting down the slippery rocks  
behind him in a twinkling he was in the water, almost as soon as  
the boy himself.
  
"Doggoned idjut!" exclaimed Old Kennebec, tearfully. "Wuth the  
hull fool family! If I hedn't 'a' be'n so old, I'd 'a' jumped  
in myself, for you can't drownd a Wiley, not without you tie  
nail-kegs to their head an' feet an' drop 'em in the falls."  
  
Alcestis, who had neither brains, courage, nor experience, had,  
better still, the luck that follows the witless. He was carried  
swiftly down the current; but, only fifty feet away, a long,  
slender, log, wedged between two low rocks on the shore, jutted  
out over the water, almost touching its surface. The boy's  
clothes were admirably adapted to the situation, being full of  
enormous rents. In some way the end of the log caught in the  
rags of Alcestis's coat and held him just seconds enough to  
enable Stephen to swim to him, to seize him by the nape of the  
neck, to lift him on the log, and thence to the shore. It was a  
particularly bad place for a landing, and there was nothing to do  
but to lower ropes and drag the drenched men to the high ground  
above.
  
Alcestis came to his senses in ten or fifteen minutes, and seemed  
as bright as usual: with a kind of added swagger at being the  
central figure in a dramatic situation.
  
"I wonder you hedn't stove your brains out, when you landed so  
turrible suddent on that rock at the foot of the bank," said Mr.
Wiley to him. "I should, but I took good care to light on my  
head," responded Alcestis; a cryptic remark which so puzzled Old  
Kennebec that he mused over it for some hours.
  
  
  
HEARTS AND OTHER HEARTS  
  
Stephen had brought a change of clothes, as he had a habit of  
being ducked once at least during the day; and since there was a  
halt in the proceedings and no need of his services for an hour  
or two, he found Rose and walked with her to a secluded spot  
where they could watch the logs and not be seen by the people.
  
"You frightened everybody almost to death, jumping into the  
river," chided Rose.
  
Stephen laughed. "They thought I was a fool to save a fool, I  
suppose."  
  
"Perhaps not as bad as that, but it did seem reckless."  
  
"I know; and the boy, no doubt, would be better off dead; but so  
should I be, if I could have let him die."   
  
Rose regarded this strange point of view for a moment, and then  
silently acquiesced in it. She was constantly doing this, and  
she often felt that her mental horizon broadened in the act; but  
she could not be sure that Stephen grew any dearer to her because  
of his moral altitudes.
  
"Besides," Stephen argued, "I happened to be nearest to the  
river, and it was my job."  
  
"How do you always happen to be nearest to the people in trouble,  
and why is it always your 'job'!"   
  
"If there are any rewards for good conduct being distributed, I'm  
right in line with my hand stretched out," Stephen replied, with  
meaning in his voice.
  
Rose blushed under her flowery hat as he led the way to a bench  
under a sycamore tree that overhung the water.
  
She had almost convinced herself that she was as much in love  
with Stephen Waterman as it was in her nature to be with anybody.  
He was handsome in his big way, kind, generous, temperate, well  
educated, and well-to-do. No fault could be found with his  
family, for his mother had been a teacher, and his father, though  
a farmer, a college graduate. Stephen himself had had one year  
at Bowdoin, but had been recalled, as the head of the house, when  
his father died. That was a severe blow; but his mother's death,  
three years after, was a grief never to be quite forgotten.  
Rose, too, was the child of a gently bred mother, and all her  
instincts were refined. Yes; Stephen in himself satisfied her in  
all the larger wants of her nature, but she had an unsatisfied  
hunger for the world,--the world of Portland, where her cousins  
lived; or, better still, the world of Boston, of which she heard  
through Mrs. Wealthy Brooks, whose nephew Claude often came to  
visit her in Edgewood. Life on a farm a mile and a half distant  
from post-office and stores; life in the house with Rufus, who  
was rumored to be somewhat wild and unsteady,--this prospect  
seemed a trifle dull and uneventful to the trivial part of her,  
though to the better part it was enough. The better part of her  
loved Stephen Waterman, dimly feeling the richness of his nature,  
the tenderness of his affection, the strength of his character.  
Rose was not destitute either of imagination or sentiment. She  
did not relish this constant weighing of Stephen in the balance:  
he was too good to be weighed and considered. She longed to be  
carried out of herself on a wave of rapturous assent, but  
something seemed to hold her back,--some seed of discontent  
with the man's environment and circumstances, some germ of  
longing for a gayer, brighter, more varied life. No amount of  
self-searching or argument could change the situation. She  
always loved Stephen more or less: more when he was away from  
her, because she never approved his collars nor the set of his  
shirt bosom; and as he naturally wore these despised articles of  
apparel whenever he proposed to her, she was always lukewarm  
about marrying him and settling down on the River Farm. Still,  
to-day she discovered in herself, with positive gratitude, a  
warmer feeling for him than she had experienced before. He wore  
a new and becoming gray flannel shirt, with the soft turnover  
collar that belonged to it, and a blue tie, the color of his kind  
eyes. She knew that he had shaved his beard at her request not  
long ago, and that when she did not like the effect as much as  
she had hoped, he had meekly grown a mustache for her sake; it  
did seem as if a man could hardly do more to please an exacting  
lady-love.
  
And she had admired him unreservedly when he pulled off his boots  
and jumped into the river to save Alcestis Crambry's life,  
without giving a single thought to his own. And was there ever,  
after all, such a noble, devoted, unselfish fellow, or a better  
brother? And would she not despise herself for rejecting him  
simply because he was countrified, and because she longed to see  
the world of the fashion-plates in the magazines?
  
"The logs are so like people!" she exclaimed, as they sat down.  
"I could name nearly every one of them for somebody in the  
village. Look at Mite Shapley, that dancing little one, slipping  
over the falls and skimming along the top of the water, keeping  
out of all the deep places, and never once touching the rocks."  
  
Stephen fell into her mood. "There's Squire Anderson coming down  
crosswise and bumping everything in reach. You know he's always  
buying lumber and logs without knowing what he is going to do  
with them. They just lie and rot by the roadside. The boys  
always say that a toad-stool is the old Squire's 'mark' on a  
log."  
               
"And that stout, clumsy one is Short Dennett.--What are you  
doing, Stephen!"  
  
"Only building a fence round this clump of harebells," Stephen  
replied. "They've just got well rooted, and if the boys come  
skidding down the bank with their spiked shoes, the poor things  
will never hold up their heads again. Now they're safe.--Oh,  
look, Rose! There come the minister and his wife!"  
  
A portly couple of peeled logs, exactly matched in size, came  
ponderously over the falls together, rose within a second of each  
other, joined again, and swept under the bridge side by side.
  
"And--oh! oh! Dr. and Mrs. Cram just after them! Isn't that  
funny?" laughed Rose, as a very long, slender pair of pines swam  
down, as close to each other as if they had been glued in that  
position. Rose thought, as she watched them, who but Stephen  
would have cared what became of the clump of delicate harebells.  
How gentle such a man would be to a woman! How tender his touch  
would be if she were ill or in trouble!
  
Several single logs followed,--crooked ones, stolid ones,  
adventurous ones, feeble swimmers, deep divers. Some of them  
tried to start a small jam on their own account; others stranded  
themselves for good and all, as Rose and Stephen sat there side  
by side, with little Dan Cupid for an invisible third on the  
bench.
  
"There never was anything so like people," Rose repeated, leaning  
forward excitedly. "And, upon my word, the minister and doctor  
couples are still together. I wonder if they'll get as far as  
the falls at Union? That would be an odd place to part, wouldn't  
it--Union?"  Stephen saw his opportunity, and seized it.
  
"There's a reason, Rose, why two logs go down stream better than  
one, and get into less trouble. They make a wider path, create  
more force and a better current. It's the same way with men and  
women. Oh, Rose, there isn't a man in the world that's loved  
you as long, or knows how to love you any better than I do.  
You're just like a white birch sapling, and I'm a great, clumsy  
fir tree; but if you'll only trust yourself to me, Rose, I'll  
take you safely down river."  
  
Stephen's big hand closed on Rose's little one she returned its  
pressure softly and gave him the kiss that with her, as with him,  
meant a promise for all the years to come. The truth and passion  
in the man had broken the girl's bonds for the moment. Her  
vision was clearer, and, realizing the treasures of love and  
fidelity that were being offered her, she accepted them, half  
unconscious that she was not returning them in kind. How is the  
belle of two villages to learn that she should "thank Heaven,  
fasting, for a good man's love"? And Stephen? He went home in  
the dusk, not knowing whether his feet were touching the solid  
earth or whether he was treading upon rainbows.
  
Rose's pink calico seemed to brush him as he walked in the path  
that was wide enough only for one. His solitude was peopled  
again when he fed the cattle, for Rose's face smiled at him from  
the haymow; and when he strained the milk, Rose held the pans.
  
His nightly tasks over, he went out and took his favorite seat  
under the apple tree. All was still, save for the crickets'  
ceaseless chirp, the soft thud of an August sweeting dropping in  
the grass, and the swish-swash of the water against his boat,  
tethered in the Willow Cove.
  
He remembered when he first saw Rose, for that must have been  
when he began to love her, though he was only fourteen and quite  
unconscious that the first seed had been dropped in the rich soil  
of his boyish heart.
  
He was seated on the kerosene barrel in the Edgewood post-office,  
which was also the general country store, where newspapers,  
letters, molasses, nails, salt codfish, hairpins, sugar, liver  
pills, canned goods, beans, and ginghams dwelt in genial  
proximity. When she entered, just a little pink-and-white slip  
of a thing with a tin pail in her hand and a sunbonnet falling  
off her wavy hair, Stephen suddenly stopped swinging his feet.  
She gravely announced her wants, reading them from a bit of  
paper,--1 quart molasses, 1 package ginger, 1 lb. cheese, 2  
pairs shoe laces, 1 card shirt buttons.
  
While the storekeeper drew off the molasses she exchanged shy  
looks with Stephen, who, clean, well-dressed, and carefully  
mothered as he was, felt all at once uncouth and awkward, rather  
as if he were some clumsy lout pitchforked into the presence of a  
fairy queen. He offered her the little bunch of bachelor's  
buttons he held in his hand, augury of the future, had he known  
it,--and she accepted them with a smile. She dropped her  
memorandum; he picked it up, and she smiled again, doing still  
more fatal damage than in the first instance. No words were  
spoken, but Rose, even at ten, had less need of them than most of  
her sex, for her dimples, aided by dancing eyes, length of  
lashes, and curve of lips, quite took the place of conversation.  
The dimples tempted, assented, denied, corroborated, deplored,  
protested, sympathized, while the intoxicated beholder cudgeled  
his brain for words or deeds which should provoke and evoke more  
and more dimples.
  
The storekeeper hung the molasses pail over Rose's right arm and  
tucked the packages under her left, and as he opened the mosquito  
netting door to let her pass out she looked back at Stephen,  
perched on the kerosene barrel. Just a little girl, a little  
glance, a little dimple, and Stephen was never quite the same  
again. The years went on, and the boy became man, yet no other  
image had ever troubled the deep, placid waters of his heart.  
Now, after many denials, the hopes and longings of his nature had  
been answered, and Rose had promised to marry him. He would  
sacrifice his passion for logging and driving in the future, and  
become a staid farmer and man of affairs, only giving himself a  
river holiday now and then. How still and peaceful it was under  
the trees, and how glad his mother would be to think that the old  
farm would wake from its sleep, and a woman's light foot be heard  
in the sunny kitchen!
  
Heaven was full of silent stars, and there was a moonglade on the  
water that stretched almost from him to Rose. His heart embarked  
on that golden pathway and sailed on it to the farther shore.  
The river was free of logs, and under the light of the moon it  
shone like a silver mirror. The soft wind among the fir branches  
breathed Rose's name; the river, rippling against the shore,  
sang, "Rose;" and as Stephen sat there dreaming of the future,  
his dreams, too, could have been voiced in one word, and that  
word " Rose."   
  
  
  
THE LITTLE HOUSE  
  
The autumn days flew past like shuttles in a loom. The river  
reflected the yellow foliage of the white birch and the scarlet  
of the maples. The wayside was bright with goldenrod, with the  
red tassels of the sumac, with the purple frost-flower and  
feathery clematis.
  
If Rose was not as happy as Stephen, she was quietly content, and  
felt that she had more to be grateful for than most girls, for  
Stephen surprised her with first one evidence and then another of  
thoughtful generosity. In his heart of hearts he felt that Rose  
was not wholly his, that she reserved, withheld something; and it  
was the subjugation of this rebellious province that he sought.  
He and Rose had agreed to wait a year for their marriage, in  
which time Rose's cousin would finish school and be ready to live  
with the old people; meanwhile Stephen had learned that his  
maiden aunt would be glad to come and keep house for Rufus. The  
work at the River Farm was too hard for a girl, so he had  
persuaded himself of late, and the house was so far from the  
village that Rose was sure to be lonely. He owned a couple of  
acres between his place and the Edgewood bridge, and here, one  
afternoon only a month after their engagement, he took Rose to  
see the foundations of a little house he was building for her.  
It was to be only a story-and-a-half cottage of six small rooms,  
the two upper chambers to be finished off later on. Stephen had  
placed it well back from the road, leaving space in front for  
what was to be a most wonderful arrangement of flower-beds, yet  
keeping a strip at the back, on the river-brink, for a small  
vegetable garden. There had been a house there years before--  
so many years that the blackened ruins were entirely overgrown;  
but a few elms and an old apple-orchard remained to shade the new  
dwelling and give welcome to the coming inmates.
  
Stephen had fifteen hundred dollars in bank, he could turn his  
hand to almost anything, and his love was so deep that Rose's  
plumb-line had never sounded bottom; accordingly he was able,  
with the help of two steady workers, to have the roof on before  
the first of November. The weather was clear and fine, and by  
Thanksgiving clapboards, shingles, two coats of brown paint, and  
even the blinds had all been added. This exhibition of reckless  
energy on Stephen's part did not wholly commend itself to the  
neighborhood.
  
"Steve's too turrible spry," said Rose's grandfather; "he'll trip  
himself up some o' these times."  
  
"You never will," remarked his better half, sagely.
  
"The resks in life come along fast enough, without runnin' to  
meet 'em," continued the old man. "There's good dough in Rose,  
but it ain't more'n half riz. Let somebody come along an' drop  
in a little more yeast, or set the dish a little mite nearer the  
stove, an' you'll see what'll happen."  
  
"Steve's kept house for himself some time, an' I guess he knows  
more about bread-makin' than you do."  
  
"There don't nobody know more'n I do about nothin', when my  
pipe's drawin' real good an' nobody's thornin' me to go to work,"  
replied Mr. Wiley; "but nobody's willin' to take the advice of a  
man that's seen the world an' lived in large places, an' the  
risin' generation is in a turrible hurry. I don' know how 't is:  
young folks air allers settin' the clock forrard an' the old ones  
puttin' it back."  
  
"Did you ketch anything for dinner when you was out this  
mornin'?" asked his wife. "No, I fished an' fished, till I was  
about  ready to drop, an' I did git a few shiners, but land, they  
wa'n't as big as the worms I was ketchin' 'em with, so I pitched  
'em back in the water an' quit."  
  
During the progress of these remarks Mr. Wiley opened the door  
under the sink, and from beneath a huge iron pot drew a round  
tray loaded with a glass pitcher and half a dozen tumblers, which  
he placed carefully on the kitchen table.
  
"This is the last day's option I've got on this lemonade-set," he  
said, "an' if I'm goin'to Biddeford to-morrer I've got to make up  
my mind here an' now."  
   
With this observation he took off his shoes, climbed in his  
stocking feet to the vantage ground of a kitchen chair, and  
lifted a stone china pitcher from a corner of the highest  
cupboard shelf where it had been hidden.
  
"This lemonade's gittin' kind o' dusty," he complained, "I  
cal'lated to hev a kind of a spree on it when I got through  
choosin' Rose's weddin' present, but I guess the pig'll hev to  
help me out."  
  
The old man filled one of the glasses from the pitcher, pulled up  
the kitchen shades to the top,put both hands in his pockets, and  
walked solemnly round the table, gazing at his offering from  
every possible point of view.
  
There had been three lemonade sets in the window of a Biddeford  
crockery store when Mr. Wiley chanced to pass by, and he had  
brought home the blue and green one on approval.
  
To the casual eye it would have appeared as quite uniquely  
hideous until the red and yellow or the purple and orange ones  
had been seen; after that, no human being could have made a  
decision, where each was so unparalleled in its ugliness, and Old  
Kennebec's confusion of mind would have been perfectly understood  
by the connoisseur.
  
"How do you like it with the lemonade in, mother?" he inquired  
eagerly. "The thing that plagues me most is that the red an'  
yaller one I hed home last week lights up better'n this, an' I  
believe I'll settle on that; for as I was thinkin' last night in  
bed, lemonade is mostly an evenin' drink an' Rose won't be usin'  
the set much by daylight. Root beer looks the han'somest in this  
purple set, but Rose loves lemonade better'n beer, so I guess  
I'll pack up this one an' change it to-morrer. Mebbe when I get  
it out o' sight an' give the lemonade to the pig I'll be easier  
in my mind."  
  
In the opinion of the community at large Stephen's forehandedness  
in the matter of preparations for his marriage was imprudence,  
and his desire for neatness and beauty flagrant extravagance.  
The house itself was a foolish idea, it was thought, but there  
were extenuating circumstances, for the maiden aunt really needed  
a home, and Rufus was likely to marry before long and take his  
wife to the River Farm. It was to be hoped in his case that he  
would avoid the snares of beauty and choose a good stout girl who  
would bring the dairy back to what it was in Mrs. Waterman's  
time.
  
All winter long Stephen labored on the inside of the cottage,  
mostly by himself. He learned all trades in succession, Love  
being his only master. He had many odd days to spare from his  
farm work, and if he had not found days he would have taken  
nights. Scarcely a nail was driven without Rose's advice; and  
when the plastering was hard and dry, the wall-papers were the  
result of weeks of consultation.
  
Among the quiet joys of life there is probably no other so deep,  
so sweet, so full of trembling hope and delight, as the building  
and making of a home,--a home where two lives are to be merged  
in one and flow on together, a home full of mysterious and  
delicious possibilities, hidden in a future which is always  
rose-colored.  
  
Rose's sweet little nature broadened under Stephen's influence;  
but she had her moments of discontent and unrest, always followed  
quickly by remorse.  
  
At the Thanksgiving sociable some one had observed her turquoise  
engagement ring,--some one who said that such a hand was worthy  
of a diamond, that turquoises were a pretty color, but that there  
was only one stone for an engagement ring, and that was a  
diamond. At the Christmas dance the same some one had said her  
waltzing would make her "all the rage" in Boston. She wondered  
if it were true, and wondered whether, if she had not promised to  
marry Stephen, some splendid being from a city would have  
descended from his heights, bearing diamonds in his hand. Not  
that she would have accepted them; she only wondered. These  
disloyal thoughts came seldom, and she put them resolutely away,  
devoting herself with all the greater assiduity to her muslin  
curtains and ruffled pillow-shams. Stephen, too, had his  
momentary pangs. There were times when he could calm his doubts  
only by working on the little house. The mere sight of the  
beloved floors and walls and ceilings comforted his heart, and  
brought him good cheer.
  
The winter was a cold one, so bitterly cold that even the rapid  
water at the Gray Rock was a mass of curdled yellow ice,  
something that had only occurred once or twice before within the  
memory of the oldest inhabitant.
   
It was also a very gay season for Pleasant River and Edgewood.  
Never had there been so many card-parties, sleigh rides and  
tavern dances, and never such wonderful skating. The river was  
one gleaming, glittering thoroughfare of ice from Milliken's  
Mills to the dam at the  Edgewood bridge. At sundown bonfires  
were built here and there on the mirror like surface, and all the  
young people from the neighboring villages gathered on the ice;  
while detachments of merry, rosycheeked boys and girls, those who  
preferred coasting, met at the top of Brigadier Hill, from which  
one could get a longer and more perilous slide than from any  
other point in the township.
  
Claude Merrill, in his occasional visits from Boston, was very  
much in evidence at the Saturday evening ice parties. He was not  
an artist at the sport himself, but he was especially proficient  
in the art of strapping on a lady's skates, and mur'muring--as  
he adjusted the last buckle,--"The prettiest foot and ankle on  
the river!"  It cannot be denied that this compliment gave secret  
pleasure to the fair village maidens who received it, but it was  
a pleasure accompanied by electric shocks of excitement. A  
girl's foot might perhaps be mentioned, if a fellow were daring  
enough, but the line was rigidly drawn at the ankle, which was  
not a part of the human frame ever alluded to in the polite  
society of Edgewood at that time.
  
Rose, in her red linsey-woolsey dress and her squirrel furs and  
cap, was the life of every gathering, and when Stephen took her  
hand and they glided up stream, alone together in the crowd, he  
used to wish that they might skate on and on up the crystal  
ice-path of the river, to the moon itself, whither it seemed to  
lead them.  
  
  
  
THE GARDEN OF EDEN  
  
But the Saco all this time was meditating of its surprises. The  
snapping cold weather and the depth to which the water was frozen  
were aiding it in its preparation for the greatest event of the  
season. On a certain gray Saturday in March, after a week of  
mild temperature, it began to rain as if, after months of  
snowing, it really enjoyed a new form of entertainment. Sunday  
dawned with the very flood-gates of heaven opening, so it seemed.  
All day long the river was rising under its miles of unbroken  
ice, rising at the threatening rate of four inches an hour.
  
Edgewood went to bed as usual that night, for the bridge at that  
point was set too high to be carried away by freshets, but at  
other villages whose bridges were in less secure position there  
was little sleep and much anxiety.
  
At midnight a cry was heard from the men watching at Milliken's  
Mills. The great ice jam had parted from Rolfe's Island and was  
swinging out into the open, pushing everything before it. All  
the able-bodied men in the village turned out of bed, and with  
lanterns in hand began to clear the stores and mills, for it  
seemed that everything near the river banks must go before that  
avalanche of ice.
  
Stephen and Rufus were there helping to save the property of  
their friends and neighbors; Rose and Mite Shapley had stayed the  
night with a friend, and all three girls were shivering with fear  
and excitement as they stood near the bridge, watching the  
never-to-be-forgtten sight. It is needless to s