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diff --git a/old/1033-h.zip b/old/1033-h.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..fc7f6ed --- /dev/null +++ b/old/1033-h.zip diff --git a/old/1033-h/1033-h.htm b/old/1033-h/1033-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..8199535 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/1033-h/1033-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,3385 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> + +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> + <head> + <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=iso-8859-1" /> + <title> + The Project Gutenberg eBook of Rose O’ The River, by Kate Douglas Wiggin. + </title> + <style type="text/css"> + /*<![CDATA[ XML blockout */ + <!-- + body {margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%;} + p {margin-top: .75em; text-align: justify; margin-bottom: .75em;} + h1 {text-align: center; clear: both; font-size: 180%;} + h2 {text-align: center; clear: both; font-size: 120%;} + h3 {text-align: center; clear: both; font-size: 100%;} + table {margin-left:auto; margin-right:auto; text-align: center;} + .pagenum {position: absolute; left: 92%; font-size: smaller; text-align: right;} + hr.full {width:100%; margin-top:2em; margin-bottom: 2em;} + hr.major {width:75%; margin-top:2em; margin-bottom: 2em;} + hr.minor {width:30%; margin-top:0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.5em; } + .tnote {border: dashed 1px; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; + padding-bottom: .5em; padding-top: .5em; + padding-left: .5em; padding-right: .5em; + font-size: 90% } + ins {text-decoration:none; border-bottom: thin dotted gray;} + .smcap {font-variant: small-caps} + .blockquot {margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%;} + .figcenter {margin: auto; text-align: center;} + .caption {font-size: 75%;} + // --> + /* XML end ]]>*/ + </style> + </head> +<body> + + +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Rose O' the River, by Kate Douglas Wiggin + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Rose O' the River + +Author: Kate Douglas Wiggin + +Release Date: July 16, 2006 [EBook #1033] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ROSE O' THE RIVER *** + + + + +Produced by Shanti Day and Roger Frank + + + + + +</pre> + + + +<div class='figcenter' style='width: 300px; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'> +<a name='illus-001' id='illus-001'></a> +<img src='images/rose-1.jpg' alt='ROSE O’ THE RIVER' title='' /><br /> +<span class='caption'>ROSE O’ THE RIVER</span> +</div> + +<hr class='major' /> + +<div class='figcenter'> +<span style='font-size:200%'>Rose O’ the River<br /><br /></span> +<span style='font-size:80%'>BY<br /></span> +<span style='font-size:120%'>KATE DOUGLAS WIGGIN<br /></span> +<span style='font-size:100%'><br /><br /><br />ILLUSTRATED BY<br /></span> +<span style='font-size:100%'>GEORGE WRIGHT<br /><br /></span> +</div> +<p style='text-align:center;'><img src='images/rose-emb.png' alt='' title='' /></p> +<div class='figcenter'> +<span style='font-size:100%'><br />NEW YORK<br /></span> +<span style='font-size:120%'>GROSSET & DUNLAP<br /></span> +<span style='font-size:100%'>PUBLISHERS<br /></span> +</div> + +<hr class='major' /> +<div class='figcenter'> +<span style='font-size:80%'><br />COPYRIGHT 1905 BY THE CENTURY COMPANY<br /></span> +<span style='font-size:80%'>COPYRIGHT 1905 BY KATE DOUGLAS RIGGS<br /></span> +<span style='font-size:80%'>ALL RIGHTS RESERVED<br /><br /></span> +<span style='font-size:80%'><i>Published September 1905</i><br /></span> +</div> + +<hr class='major' /> + +<h2><a name='Contents' id='Contents'></a>Contents</h2> +<div class='smcap'> +<table border='0' width='500' cellpadding='2' cellspacing='0' summary='Contents'> +<col style='width:90%;' /> +<col style='width:10%;' /> +<tr><td align='left'>The Pine And The Rose</td><td align='right'><a href='#THE_PINE_AND_THE_ROSE'>1</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Old Kennebec</td><td align='right'><a href='#OLD_KENNEBEC'>13</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>The Edgewood “Drive”</td><td align='right'><a href='#THE_EDGEWOOD_DRIVE'>28</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>“Blasphemious Swearin’”</td><td align='right'><a href='#BLASPHEMIOUS_SWEARIN'>40</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>The Game Of Jackstraws</td><td align='right'><a href='#THE_GAME_OF_JACKSTRAWS'>50</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Hearts And Other Hearts</td><td align='right'><a href='#HEARTS_AND_OTHER_HEARTS'>67</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>The Little House</td><td align='right'><a href='#THE_LITTLE_HOUSE'>81</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>The Garden Of Eden</td><td align='right'><a href='#THE_GARDEN_OF_EDEN'>93</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>The Serpent</td><td align='right'><a href='#THE_SERPENT'>102</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>The Turquoise Ring</td><td align='right'><a href='#THE_TURQUOISE_RING'>114</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Gold And Pinchbeck</td><td align='right'><a href='#GOLD_AND_PINCHBECK'>135</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>A Country Chevalier</td><td align='right'><a href='#A_COUNTRY_CHEVALIER'>145</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Housebreaking</td><td align='right'><a href='#HOUSEBREAKING'>160</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>The Dream Room</td><td align='right'><a href='#THE_DREAM_ROOM'>168</a></td></tr> +</table> +</div> + +<hr class='major' /> + +<h2>Illustrations</h2> +<div class='smcap'> +<table border='0' width='500' cellpadding='2' cellspacing='0' summary='Illustrations'> +<col style='width:90%;' /> +<col style='width:10%;' /> +<tr><td align='left'>Rose O’ The River</td><td align='right'><a href='#illus-001'>Frontispiece</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>“She’s Up!”</td><td align='right'><a href='#illus-002'>6</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>“He’s A Turrible Smart Driver”</td><td align='right'><a href='#illus-003'>20</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>He Had Certainly “Taken Chances”</td><td align='right'><a href='#illus-004'>32</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>In A Twinkling He Was In The Water</td><td align='right'><a href='#illus-005'>64</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>“Rose, I’ll Take You Safely”</td><td align='right'><a href='#illus-006'>76</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Hiding Her Face As He Flung It Down The River-Bank</td><td align='right'><a href='#illus-007'>116</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>She Had Gone With Maude To Claude’s Store</td><td align='right'><a href='#illus-008'>128</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>“As Long As Stephen Waterman’s Alive, Rose Wiley Can Have Him”</td><td align='right'><a href='#illus-009'>158</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>“Don’t Speak, Stephen, Till You Hear What I Have To Say”</td><td align='right'><a href='#illus-010'>174</a></td></tr> +</table> +</div> + +<hr class='full' /> + +<div> +<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_1' id='Page_1'>[Pg 1]</a></span> +<h2><a name='THE_PINE_AND_THE_ROSE' id='THE_PINE_AND_THE_ROSE'></a>THE PINE AND THE ROSE</h2> +</div> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>An early ablution of this 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.<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_2' id='Page_2'>[Pg 2]</a></span></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_3' id='Page_3'>[Pg 3]</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p>The river lapped the shores of peaceful meadows; it flowed along banks +green with maple, beech, sycamore, and birch; it fell tempestuously over +dams and fought its way between rocky cliffs crowned with stately firs. +It rolled past forests of pine and hemlock and spruce, now gentle, now<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_4' id='Page_4'>[Pg 4]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>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 to-day, 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,<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_5' id='Page_5'>[Pg 5]</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_6' id='Page_6'>[Pg 6]</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<div class='figcenter' style='width: 300px; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'> +<a name='illus-002' id='illus-002'></a> +<img src='images/rose-2.jpg' alt='SHE’S UP!' title='' /><br /> +<span class='caption'>“SHE’S UP!”</span> +</div> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_7' id='Page_7'>[Pg 7]</a></span>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>The pinkish speck that Stephen Waterman<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_8' id='Page_8'>[Pg 8]</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_9' id='Page_9'>[Pg 9]</a></span> 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,<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_10' id='Page_10'>[Pg 10]</a></span> would have shrieked, in unison, “I choose her for mine.”</p> + +<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_11' id='Page_11'>[Pg 11]</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>And the river, now deep, now shallow, now smooth, now tumultuous, now +sparkling in sunshine, now gloomy under clouds,<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_12' id='Page_12'>[Pg 12]</a></span> 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.</p> + + + +<hr class='major' /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'> +<a name='OLD_KENNEBEC' id='OLD_KENNEBEC'></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_13' id='Page_13'>[Pg 13]</a></span> +<h2>OLD KENNEBEC</h2> +</div> + + +<p>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.<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_14' id='Page_14'>[Pg 14]</a></span></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“Did you remember the meat, grandpa? We’re all out,” she said, as she +began buttoning a stiff collar around his reluctant neck.</p> + +<p>“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<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_15' id='Page_15'>[Pg 15]</a></span> 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!”</p> + +<p>“You won’t,” his wife responded with the snap of a dish towel, “or if +you do, they’ll wilt with the heat.”</p> + +<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_16' id='Page_16'>[Pg 16]</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p>“Give me my coffee turrible quick,” said Mr. Wiley; “I must be down the +bridge ’fore they start dog-warpin’ the side jam.”</p> + +<p>“I notice you’re always due at the bridge on churnin’ days,” remarked +his spouse, testily.</p> + +<p>“’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<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_17' id='Page_17'>[Pg 17]</a></span> 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’.”</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p>“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,<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_18' id='Page_18'>[Pg 18]</a></span> +as a Kennebec man an’ a Christian, to set him on the right track, though +it’s always a turrible risky thing to do.”</p> + +<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_19' id='Page_19'>[Pg 19]</a></span> +tobacco and expectorating to incredible distances as he criticized and +damned impartially all the expedients in use at the particular moment.</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“But it’s such fun to watch the logs!” Rose exclaimed. “Next to dancing, +the greatest fun in the world.”</p> + +<p>“‘Specially as all the young men in town will be there, watchin’, too,” +was the grandmother’s<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_20' id='Page_20'>[Pg 20]</a></span> 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.”</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“He’d better be ’tendin’ to his farm,” objected Mrs. Wiley.</p> + +<div class='figcenter' style='width: 400px; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'> +<a name='illus-003' id='illus-003'></a> +<img src='images/rose-3.jpg' alt='HE’S A TURRIBLE SMART DRIVER' title='' /><br /> +<span class='caption'>“HE’S A TURRIBLE SMART DRIVER”</span> +</div> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_21' id='Page_21'>[Pg 21]</a></span>“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.”</p> + +<p>“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”—</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p>“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<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_22' id='Page_22'>[Pg 22]</a></span> 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.”</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p>“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’.<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_23' id='Page_23'>[Pg 23]</a></span> She couldn’t understand it, an’ there’s a heap o’ +things women-folks never do an’ never can understand,—jest because they +air women-folks.”</p> + +<p>“One o’ the things is men, I s’pose,” interrupted Mrs. Wiley.</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“Good name for him yet,” came in acid tones from the sink. “He’s still +steppin’<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_24' id='Page_24'>[Pg 24]</a></span> an’ fetchin’, only it’s Rose that’s doin’ the drivin’ now.”</p> + +<p>“I’m not driving anybody, that I know of,” answered Rose, with +heightened color, but with no loss of her habitual self-command.</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“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.”<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_25' id='Page_25'>[Pg 25]</a></span></p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“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.”<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_26' id='Page_26'>[Pg 26]</a></span></p> + +<p>“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-kags 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”—</p> + +<p>“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 women-folks; work goes consid’able +better’n stories<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_27' id='Page_27'>[Pg 27]</a></span> at every place ’cept the loafers’ bench at the +tavern.”</p> + +<p>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—</p> + +<p style='margin-left:2em'> +Broad is the road that leads to death,<br /> +<span style='margin-left: 1em;'>And thousands walk together there;</span><br /> +But Wisdom shows a narrow path,<br /> +<span style='margin-left: 1em;'>With here and there a traveler.</span><br /> +</p> + + + +<hr class='major' /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'> +<a name='THE_EDGEWOOD_DRIVE' id='THE_EDGEWOOD_DRIVE'></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_28' id='Page_28'>[Pg 28]</a></span> +<h2>THE EDGEWOOD “DRIVE”</h2> +</div> + + +<p>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-flecked 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.<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_29' id='Page_29'>[Pg 29]</a></span></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Heaps of logs had been cast up on the rocks below the dam, where they +lay in hopeless confusion, adding nothing, however,<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_30' id='Page_30'>[Pg 30]</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p>In the tumultuous boil, the foaming hubbub and flurry at the foot of the +falls, one enormous peeled log wallowed up and down<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_31' id='Page_31'>[Pg 31]</a></span> 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,<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_32' id='Page_32'>[Pg 32]</a></span> which was nearer than the shore.</p> + +<p>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 wildqq 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.</p> + +<div class='figcenter' style='width: 300px; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'> +<a name='illus-004' id='illus-004'></a> +<img src='images/rose-4.jpg' alt='HE HAD CERTAINLY ‘TAKEN CHANCES’' title='' /><br /> +<span class='caption'>HE HAD CERTAINLY “TAKEN CHANCES”</span> +</div> + + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_33' id='Page_33'>[Pg 33]</a></span>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.</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“We’re well acquainted with that rock and them rapids,” exclaimed one of +the river-drivers, to the delight of the company.</p> + +<p>Rose had reason to remember Stephen’s adventure, for he had clambered +up<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_34' id='Page_34'>[Pg 34]</a></span> 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!”</p> + +<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_35' id='Page_35'>[Pg 35]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“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’ dog-warpin’ 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<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_36' id='Page_36'>[Pg 36]</a></span> wax and jest float right off same as the logs do +when they get into quiet, sunny water.’”</p> + +<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_37' id='Page_37'>[Pg 37]</a></span> things daintily separate, Rose, also, whose tarts and cakes +were the pride and admiration of church sociables and sewing societies.</p> + +<p>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.<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_38' id='Page_38'>[Pg 38]</a></span></p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“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!”</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_39' id='Page_39'>[Pg 39]</a></span></p><p>“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’.”</p> + +<hr class='major' /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'> +<a name='BLASPHEMIOUS_SWEARIN' id='BLASPHEMIOUS_SWEARIN'></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_40' id='Page_40'>[Pg 40]</a></span> +<h2>“BLASPHEMIOUS SWEARIN’”</h2> +</div> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“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<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_41' id='Page_41'>[Pg 41]</a></span> to the old drive remember Pretty Quick Waterman +well enough? Steve’s mother brought him up.”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“Swearin’ ’s a habit that hed ought to be practiced with turrible +caution,” observed old Mr. Wiley, when the drivers had finished<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_42' id='Page_42'>[Pg 42]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>“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.<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_43' id='Page_43'>[Pg 43]</a></span></p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“He clumb up the bank more’n once to have a pull at the bottle that was +hid in the bushes,” interpolated Mr. Wiley.</p> + +<p>“Like as not; that was his failin’. Well,<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_44' id='Page_44'>[Pg 44]</a></span> 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,<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_45' id='Page_45'>[Pg 45]</a></span> 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.”</p> + +<p>“He needs it,” Ike Billings commented tersely.</p> + +<p>“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 ”—</p> + +<p>“Three cheers for the Saco! Hats off, boys!” shouted Jed Towle, and his +directions were followed with a will.</p> + +<p>“As I was sayin’,” continued the old<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_46' id='Page_46'>[Pg 46]</a></span> 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.”</p> + +<p>“Why’d you quit drivin’?” inquired Ivory.</p> + +<p>“My strength wa’n’t ekal to it,” Mr. Wiley responded sadly. “I was all +skin, bones, an’ nerve. The Comp’ny wouldn’t<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_47' id='Page_47'>[Pg 47]</a></span> part with me altogether, +so they give me a place in the office down on the wharves.”</p> + +<p>“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?”</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“Hard to find, Mr. Wiley; hard to find!” said Jed Towle.</p> + +<p>“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’<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_48' id='Page_48'>[Pg 48]</a></span> +dry on the banks of life, you might say, like a stranded log.”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“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<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_49' id='Page_49'>[Pg 49]</a></span> 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!”</p> + +<hr class='major' /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'> +<a name='THE_GAME_OF_JACKSTRAWS' id='THE_GAME_OF_JACKSTRAWS'></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_50' id='Page_50'>[Pg 50]</a></span> +<h2>THE GAME OF JACKSTRAWS</h2> +</div> + +<p>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 pick-poles, straight, heavy levers +without any “dog,” and there were modern pick-poles 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<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_51' id='Page_51'>[Pg 51]</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_52' id='Page_52'>[Pg 52]</a></span> 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 +pick-pole, 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,<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_53' id='Page_53'>[Pg 53]</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_54' id='Page_54'>[Pg 54]</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p>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 York 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<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_55' id='Page_55'>[Pg 55]</a></span> 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’vposed they +felt it would be kind of odd to go right out and marry a stranger.</p> + +<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_56' id='Page_56'>[Pg 56]</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“What’s the matter?” he called out from his wagon.<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_57' id='Page_57'>[Pg 57]</a></span> “There ain’t nothin’ +the matter,” said Alcestis Crambry. “Father’s dead, an we’re dividin’ up +the furnerchure.”</p> + +<p>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!”</p> + +<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_58' id='Page_58'>[Pg 58]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>“That is ‘A,’ my boy,” said the teacher genially, as she pointed to the +first character on the chart.</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Wiley had once tried to make<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_59' id='Page_59'>[Pg 59]</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_60' id='Page_60'>[Pg 60]</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>All was excitement now, for, this particular piece of work accomplished, +the boom above the falls would be “turned out,” and<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_61' id='Page_61'>[Pg 61]</a></span> the river would +once more be clear and clean at the Edgewood bridge.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“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<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_62' id='Page_62'>[Pg 62]</a></span> 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,<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_63' id='Page_63'>[Pg 63]</a></span> 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.”</p> + +<p>“I wish I was,” echoed the boy.</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_64' id='Page_64'>[Pg 64]</a></span>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 river-bank, 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 unnoticed, 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.</p> + +<div class='figcenter' style='width: 450px; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'> +<a name='illus-005' id='illus-005'></a> +<img src='images/rose-5.jpg' alt='IN A TWINKLING HE WAS IN THE WATER' title='' /><br /> +<span class='caption'>IN A TWINKLING HE WAS IN THE WATER</span> +</div> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_65' id='Page_65'>[Pg 65]</a></span>The other Crambrys, not realizing the danger, laughed, audibly, but +there was no jeering from the bridge.</p> + +<p>Stephen 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.</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_66' id='Page_66'>[Pg 66]</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + + + +<hr class='major' /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'> +<a name='HEARTS_AND_OTHER_HEARTS' id='HEARTS_AND_OTHER_HEARTS'></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_67' id='Page_67'>[Pg 67]</a></span> +<h2>HEARTS AND OTHER HEARTS</h2> +</div> + + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“You frightened everybody almost to death, jumping into the river,” +chided Rose.</p> + +<p>Stephen laughed. “They thought I was a fool to save a fool, I suppose.”</p> + +<p>“Perhaps not as bad as that, but it did seem reckless.”</p> + +<p>“I know; and the boy, no doubt, would be better off dead; but so should +I be, if I could have let him die.”<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_68' id='Page_68'>[Pg 68]</a></span></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“Besides,” Stephen argued, “I happened to be nearest to the river, and +it was my job.”</p> + +<p>“How do you always happen to be nearest to the people in trouble, and +why is it always your ‘job’!”</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p>Rose blushed under her flowery hat as he led the way to a bench under a +sycamore tree that overhung the water.</p> + +<p>She had almost convinced herself that she was as much in love with +Stephen Waterman as it was in her nature to be<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_69' id='Page_69'>[Pg 69]</a></span> 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<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_70' id='Page_70'>[Pg 70]</a></span> 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<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_71' id='Page_71'>[Pg 71]</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p>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.<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_72' id='Page_72'>[Pg 72]</a></span></p> + +<p>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?</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>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.”<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_73' id='Page_73'>[Pg 73]</a></span></p> + +<p>“And that stout, clumsy one is Short Dennett.—What are you doing, +Stephen!”</p> + +<p>“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!”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“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<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_74' id='Page_74'>[Pg 74]</a></span> gentle such a man would be to a woman! +How tender his touch would be if she were ill or in trouble!</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p>“There’s a reason, Rose, why two logs go down stream better than one, +and get into less trouble. They make a wider<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_75' id='Page_75'>[Pg 75]</a></span> 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.”</p> + +<p>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”?<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_76' id='Page_76'>[Pg 76]</a></span></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<div class='figcenter' style='width: 450px; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'> +<a name='illus-006' id='illus-006'></a> +<img src='images/rose-6.jpg' alt='“ROSE, I’LL TAKE YOU SAFELY”' title='' /><br /> +<span class='caption'>“ROSE, I’LL TAKE YOU SAFELY”</span> +</div> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_77' id='Page_77'>[Pg 77]</a></span>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.</p> + +<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_78' id='Page_78'>[Pg 78]</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_79' id='Page_79'>[Pg 79]</a></span> 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!</p> + +<p>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,<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_80' id='Page_80'>[Pg 80]</a></span> 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.”</p> + + + +<hr class='major' /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'> +<a name='THE_LITTLE_HOUSE' id='THE_LITTLE_HOUSE'></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_81' id='Page_81'>[Pg 81]</a></span> +<h2>THE LITTLE HOUSE</h2> +</div> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_82' id='Page_82'>[Pg 82]</a></span> 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<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_83' id='Page_83'>[Pg 83]</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“Steve’s too turrible spry,” said Rose’s grandfather; “he’ll trip +himself up some o’ these times.”</p> + +<p>“You never will,” remarked his better half, sagely.<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_84' id='Page_84'>[Pg 84]</a></span></p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“Steve’s kept house for himself some time, an’ I guess he knows more +about bread-makin’ than you do.”</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“Did you ketch anything for dinner when you was out this mornin’?” asked +his wife. “No, I fished an’ fished, till I was about<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_85' id='Page_85'>[Pg 85]</a></span> 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.”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“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’<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_86' id='Page_86'>[Pg 86]</a></span> Rose’s weddin’ +present, but I guess the pig’ll he v to help me out.”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“How do you like it with the lemonade<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_87' id='Page_87'>[Pg 87]</a></span> 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.”</p> + +<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_88' id='Page_88'>[Pg 88]</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Rose’s sweet little nature broadened<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_89' id='Page_89'>[Pg 89]</a></span> under Stephen’s influence; but she +had her moments of discontent and unrest, always followed quickly by +remorse.</p> + +<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_90' id='Page_90'>[Pg 90]</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_91' id='Page_91'>[Pg 91]</a></span> ice; while detachments of merry, rosy-cheeked 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.</p> + +<p>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 murmuring—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<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_92' id='Page_92'>[Pg 92]</a></span> in the polite +society of Edgewood at that time.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + + + +<hr class='major' /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'> +<a name='THE_GARDEN_OF_EDEN' id='THE_GARDEN_OF_EDEN'></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_93' id='Page_93'>[Pg 93]</a></span> +<h2>THE GARDEN OF EDEN</h2> +</div> + + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_94' id='Page_94'>[Pg 94]</a></span> other villages +whose bridges were in less secure position there was little sleep and +much anxiety.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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-forgotten sight. It +is needless to say that the Crambry family was on hand, for whatever +instincts they may have lacked, the instinct for being on<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_95' id='Page_95'>[Pg 95]</a></span> the spot when +anything was happening, was present in them to the most remarkable +extent. The town was supporting them in modest winter quarters somewhat +nearer than Killick to the centre of civilization, and the first alarm +brought them promptly to the scene, Mrs. Crambry remarking at intervals: +“If I’d known there’d be so many out I’d ought to have worn my bunnit; +but I ain’t got no bunnit, an’ if I had they say I ain’t got no head to +wear it on!”</p> + +<p>By the time the jam neared the falls it had grown with its +accumulations, until it was made up of tier after tier of huge ice +cakes, piled side by side and one upon another, with heaps of trees and +branches and drifting lumber holding them in place. Some of the blocks +stood erect and towered like icebergs, and these, glittering in the +lights of the twinkling lanterns, pushed solemnly forward, cracking, +crushing, and cutting everything in their way. When<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_96' id='Page_96'>[Pg 96]</a></span> the great mass +neared the planing mill on the east shore the girls covered their eyes, +expecting to hear the crash of the falling building; but, impelled by +the force of some mysterious current, it shook itself ponderously, and +then, with one magnificent movement, slid up the river bank, tier +following tier in grand confusion. This left a water way for the main +drift; the ice broke in every direction, and down, down, down, from +Bonnie Eagle and Moderation swept the harvest of the winter freezing. It +came thundering over the dam, bringing boats, farming implements, posts, +supports, and every sort of floating lumber with it; and cutting under +the flour mill, tipped it cleverly over on its side and went crashing on +its way down river. At Edgewood it pushed colossal blocks of ice up the +banks into the roadway, piling them end upon end ten feet in air. Then, +tearing and rumbling and booming through the narrows, it covered the +intervale at Pleasant Point and<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_97' id='Page_97'>[Pg 97]</a></span> made a huge ice bridge below Union +Falls, a bridge so solid that it stood there for days, a sight for all +the neighboring villages.</p> + +<p>This exciting event would have forever set apart this winter from all +others in Stephen’s memory, even had it not been also the winter when he +was building a house for his future wife. But afterwards, in looking +back on the wild night of the ice freshet, Stephen remembered that +Rose’s manner was strained and cold and evasive, and that when he had +seen her talking with Claude Merrill, it had seemed to him that that +whippersnapper had looked at her as no honorable man in Edgewood ever +looked at an engaged girl. He recalled his throb of gratitude that +Claude lived at a safe distance, and his subsequent pang of remorse at +doubting, for an instant, Rose’s fidelity.</p> + +<p>So at length April came, the Saco was still high, turbid, and angry, and +the boys were waiting at Limington Falls for the<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_98' id='Page_98'>[Pg 98]</a></span> “Ossipee drive” to +begin. Stephen joined them there, for he was restless, and the river +called him, as it did every spring. Each stubborn log that he +encountered gave him new courage and power of overcoming. The rush of +the water, the noise and roar and dash, the exposure and danger, all +made the blood run in his veins like new wine. When he came back to the +farm, all the cobwebs had been blown from his brain, and his first +interview with Rose was so intoxicating that he went immediately to +Portland, and bought, in a kind of secret penitence for his former +fears, a pale pink-flowered wall-paper for the bedroom in the new home. +It had once been voted down by the entire advisory committee. Mrs. Wiley +said pink was foolish and was always sure to fade; and the border, being +a mass of solid roses, was five cents a yard, virtually a prohibitive +price. Mr. Wiley said he “should hate to hev a spell of sickness an’ lay +abed in a room where there<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_99' id='Page_99'>[Pg 99]</a></span> was things growin’ all over the place.” He +thought “rough-plastered walls, where you could lay an’ count the spots +where the roof leaked, was the most entertainin’ in sickness.” Rose had +longed for the lovely pattern, but had sided dutifully with the prudent +majority, so that it was with a feeling of unauthorized and illegitimate +joy that Stephen papered the room at night, a few strips at a time.</p> + +<p>On the third evening, when he had removed all signs of his work, he +lighted two kerosene lamps and two candles, finding the effect, under +this illumination, almost too brilliant and beautiful for belief. Rose +should never see it now, he determined, until the furniture was in +place. They had already chosen the kitchen and bedroom things, though +they would not be needed for some months; but the rest was to wait until +summer, when there would be the hay-money to spend.</p> + +<p>Stephen did not go back to the River<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_100' id='Page_100'>[Pg 100]</a></span> Farm till one o’clock that night; +the pink bedroom held him in fetters too powerful to break. It looked +like the garden of Eden, he thought. To be sure, it was only fifteen +feet square; Eden might have been a little larger, possibly, but +otherwise the pink bedroom had every advantage. The pattern of roses +growing on a trellis was brighter than any flower-bed in June; and the +border—well, if the border had been five dollars a foot Stephen would +not have grudged the money when he saw the twenty running yards of rosy +bloom rioting under the white ceiling.</p> + +<p>Before he blew out the last light he raised it high above his head and +took one fond, final look. “It’s the only place I ever saw,” he thought, +“that is pretty enough for her. She will look just as if she was growing +here with all the other flowers, and I shall always think of it as the +garden of Eden. I wonder, if I got the license and the ring and took her +by surprise,<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_101' id='Page_101'>[Pg 101]</a></span> whether she’d be married in June instead of August? I +could be all ready if I could only persuade her.”</p> + +<p>At this moment Stephen touched the summit of happiness; and it is a +curious coincidence that as he was dreaming in his garden of Eden, the +serpent, having just arrived at Edgewood, was sleeping peacefully at the +house of Mrs. Brooks.</p> + +<p>It was the serpent’s fourth visit that season, and he explained to +inquiring friends that his former employer had sold the business, and +that the new management, while reorganizing, had determined to enlarge +the premises, the three clerks who had been retained having two weeks’ +vacation with half pay.</p> + +<p>It is extraordinary how frequently “wise serpents” are retained by the +management on half, or even full, salary, while the services of the +“harmless doves” are dispensed with, and they are set free to flutter +where they will.</p> + + + +<hr class='major' /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'> +<a name='THE_SERPENT' id='THE_SERPENT'></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_102' id='Page_102'>[Pg 102]</a></span> +<h2>THE SERPENT</h2> +</div> + + +<p>Rose Wiley had the brightest eyes in Edgewood. It was impossible to look +at her without realizing that her physical sight was perfect. What +mysterious species of blindness is it that descends, now and then, upon +human creatures, and renders them incapable of judgment or +discrimination?</p> + +<p>Claude Merrill was a glove salesman in a Boston fancy-goods store. The +calling itself is undoubtedly respectable, and it is quite conceivable +that a man can sell gloves and still be a man; but Claude Merrill was a +manikin. He inhabited a very narrow space behind a very short counter, +but to him it seemed the earth and the fullness thereof.<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_103' id='Page_103'>[Pg 103]</a></span></p> + +<p>When, irreproachably neat and even exquisite in dress, he gave a +Napoleonic glance at his array of glove-boxes to see if the female +assistant had put them in proper order for the day; when, with that +wonderful eye for detail that had wafted him to his present height of +power, he pounced upon the powder-sprinklers and found them, as he +expected, empty; when, with masterly judgment, he had made up and +ticketed a basket of misfits and odd sizes to attract the eyes of women +who were their human counterparts, he felt himself bursting with the +pride and pomp of circumstance. His cambric handkerchief adjusted in his +coat with the monogram corner well displayed, a last touch to the +carefully trained lock on his forehead, and he was ready for his +customers.</p> + +<p>“Six, did you say, miss? I should have thought five and three +quarters—Attend to that gentleman, Miss Dix, please; I am very busy.”<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_104' id='Page_104'>[Pg 104]</a></span></p> + +<p>“Six-and-a-half gray suede? Here they are, an exquisite shade. Shall I +try them on? The right hand, if you will. Perhaps you’d better remove +your elegant ring; I shouldn’t like to have anything catch in the +setting.”</p> + +<p>“Miss Dix! Six-and-a-half black glace—upper shelf, third box—for this +lady. She’s in a hurry. We shall see you often after this, I hope, +madam.”</p> + +<p>“No; we don’t keep silk or lisle gloves. We have no call for them; our +customers prefer kid.”</p> + +<p>Oh, but he was in his element, was Claude Merrill; though the glamour +that surrounded him in the minds of the Edgewood girls did not emanate +wholly from his finicky little person: something of it was the glamour +that belonged to Boston,—remote, fashionable, gay, rich, almost +inaccessible Boston, which none could see without the expenditure of +five or six dollars in railway fare, with the added extravagance of a +night in a hotel, if one would explore it<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_105' id='Page_105'>[Pg 105]</a></span> thoroughly and come home +possessed of all its illimitable treasures of wisdom and experience.</p> + +<p>When Claude came to Edgewood for a Sunday, or to spend a vacation with +his aunt, he brought with him something of the magic of a metropolis. +Suddenly, to Rose’s eye, Stephen looked larger and clumsier, his shoes +were not the proper sort, his clothes were ordinary, his neckties were +years behind the fashion. Stephen’s dancing, compared with Claude’s, was +as the deliberate motion of an ox to the hopping of a neat little robin. +When Claude took a girl’s hand in the “grand right-and-left,” it was as +if he were about to try on a delicate glove; the manner in which he +“held his lady” in the polka or schottische made her seem a queen. Mite +Shapley was so affected by it that when Rufus attempted to encircle her +for the mazurka she exclaimed, “Don’t act as if you were spearing logs, +Rufus!”</p> + +<p>Of the two men, Stephen had more to<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_106' id='Page_106'>[Pg 106]</a></span> say, but Claude said more. He was +thought brilliant in conversation; but what wonder, when one considered +his advantages and his dazzling experiences! He had customers who were +worth their thousands; ladies whose fingers never touched dish-water; +ladies who wouldn’t buy a glove of anybody else if they went bare-handed +to the grave. He lived with his sister Maude Arthurlena in a house where +there were twenty-two other boarders who could be seated at meals all at +the same time, so immense was the dining-room. He ate his dinner at a +restaurant daily, and expended twenty-five cents for it without +blenching. He went to the theatre once a week, and was often accompanied +by “lady friends” who were “elegant dressers.”</p> + +<p>In a moment of wrath Stephen had called him a “counter-jumper,” but it +was a libel. So short and rough a means of exit from his place of power +was wholly beneath Claude’s dignity. It was with a<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_107' id='Page_107'>[Pg 107]</a></span> “Pardon me, Miss +Dix,” that, the noon hour having arrived, he squeezed by that slave and +victim, and raising the hinged board that separated his kingdom from +that of the ribbon department, passed out of the store, hat in hand, +serene in the consciousness that though other clerks might nibble +luncheon from a brown paper bag, he would speedily be indulging in an +expensive repast; and Miss Dix knew it, and it was a part of his almost +invincible attraction for her.</p> + +<p>It seemed flying in the face of Providence to decline the attentions of +such a gorgeous butterfly of fashion simply because one was engaged to +marry another man at some distant day.</p> + +<p>All Edgewood femininity united in saying that there never was such a +perfect gentleman as Claude Merrill; and during the time when his +popularity was at its height Rose lost sight of the fact that Stephen +could have furnished the stuff for<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_108' id='Page_108'>[Pg 108]</a></span> a dozen Claudes and have had enough +left for an ordinary man besides.</p> + +<p>April gave place to May, and a veil hung between the lovers,—an +intangible, gossamer-like thing, not to be seen with the naked eye, but, +oh! so plainly to be felt. Rose hid herself thankfully behind it, while +Stephen had not courage to lift a corner. She had twice been seen +driving with Claude Merrill—that Stephen knew; but she had explained +that there were errands to be done, that her grandfather had taken the +horse, and that Mr. Merrill’s escort had been both opportune and +convenient for these practical reasons. Claude was everywhere present, +the centre of attraction, the observed of all observers. He was +irresistible, contagious, almost epidemic. Rose was now gay, now silent; +now affectionate, now distant, now coquettish; in fine, everything that +was capricious, mysterious, agitating, incomprehensible.</p> + +<p>One morning Alcestis Crambry went<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_109' id='Page_109'>[Pg 109]</a></span> to the post-office for Stephen and +brought him back the newspapers and letters. He had hung about the River +Farm so much that Stephen finally gave him bed and food in exchange for +numberless small errands. Rufus was temporarily confined in a dark room +with some strange pain and trouble in his eyes, and Alcestis proved of +use in many ways. He had always been Rose’s slave, and had often brought +messages and notes from the Brier Neighborhood, so that when Stephen saw +a folded note among the papers his heart gave a throb of anticipation.</p> + +<p>The note was brief, and when he had glanced through it he said: “This is +not mine, Alcestis; it belongs to Miss Rose. Go straight back and give +it to her as you were told; and another time keep your wits about you, +or I’ll send you back to Killick.”</p> + +<p>Alcestis Crambry’s ideas on all subjects were extremely vague. Claude +Merrill had<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_110' id='Page_110'>[Pg 110]</a></span> given him a letter for Rose, but his notion was that +anything that belonged to her belonged to Stephen, and the Waterman +place was much nearer than the Wileys’, particularly at dinner-time!</p> + +<p>When the boy had slouched away, Stephen sat under the apple tree, now a +mass of roseate bloom, and buried his face in his hands.</p> + +<p>It was not precisely a love-letter that he had read, nevertheless it +blackened the light of the sun for him. Claude asked Rose to meet him +anywhere on the road to the station and to take a little walk, as he was +leaving that afternoon and could not bear to say good-by to her in the +presence of her grandmother. “Under the circumstances,” he wrote, deeply +underlining the words, “I cannot remain a moment longer in Edgewood, +where I have been so happy and so miserable!” He did not refer to the +fact that the time limit on his return-ticket expired that day, for his<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_111' id='Page_111'>[Pg 111]</a></span> +dramatic instinct told him that such sordid matters have no place in +heroics.</p> + +<p>Stephen sat motionless under the tree for an hour, deciding on some plan +of action.</p> + +<p>He had work at the little house, but he did not dare go there lest he +should see the face of dead Love looking from the windows of the pink +bedroom; dead Love, cold, sad, merciless. His cheeks burned as he +thought of the marriage license and the gold ring hidden away upstairs +in the drawer of his shaving stand. What a romantic fool he had been, to +think he could hasten the glad day by a single moment! What a piece of +boyish folly it had been, and how it shamed him in his own eyes!</p> + +<p>When train time drew near he took his boat and paddled down stream. If for +the Finland lover’s reindeer there was but one path in all the world, +and that the one that led to Her, so it was for Stephen’s canoe, which, +had it been set free on the river by<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_112' id='Page_112'>[Pg 112]</a></span> day or by night, might have +floated straight to Rose.</p> + +<p>He landed at the usual place, a bit of sandy shore near the Wiley house, +and walked drearily up the bank through the woods. Under the shade of +the pines the white stars of the hepatica glistened and the pale +anemones were coming into bloom. Partridge-berries glowed red under +their glossy leaves, and clumps of violets sweetened the air. Squirrels +chattered, woodpeckers tapped, thrushes sang; but Stephen was blind and +deaf to all the sweet harbingers of spring.</p> + +<p>Just then he heard voices, realizing with a throb of delight that, at +any rate, Rose had not left home to meet Claude, as he had asked her to +do. Looking through the branches, he saw the two standing together, Mrs. +Brooks’s horse; with the offensive trunk in the back of the wagon, being +hitched to a tree near by. There was nothing in the tableau to stir +Stephen to<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_113' id='Page_113'>[Pg 113]</a></span> fury, but he read between the lines and suffered as he +read—suffered and determined to sacrifice himself if he must, so that +Rose could have what she wanted, this miserable apology for a man. He +had never been the husband for Rose; she must take her place in a larger +community, worthy of her beauty and charm.</p> + +<p>Claude was talking and gesticulating ardently. Rose’s head was bent and +the tears were rolling down her cheeks. Suddenly Claude raised his hat, +and with a passionate gesture of renunciation walked swiftly to the +wagon, and looking back once, drove off with the utmost speed of which +the Brooks’s horse was capable,—Rose waving him a farewell with one +hand and wiping her eyes with the other.</p> + +<hr class='major' /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'> +<a name='THE_TURQUOISE_RING' id='THE_TURQUOISE_RING'></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_114' id='Page_114'>[Pg 114]</a></span> +<h2>THE TURQUOISE RING</h2> +</div> + +<p>Stephen stood absolutely still in front of the opening in the trees, and +as Rose turned she met him face to face. She had never dreamed his eyes +could be so stern, his mouth so hard, and she gave a sob like a child.</p> + +<p>“You seem to be in trouble,” Stephen said in a voice so cold she thought +it could not be his.</p> + +<p>“I am not in trouble, exactly,” Rose stammered, concealing her +discomfiture as well as possible. “I am a little unhappy because I have +made some one else unhappy; and now that you know it, you will be +unhappy too, and angry besides, I suppose, though you’ve seen everything +there was to see.”</p> + +<p>“There is no occasion for sorrow,<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_115' id='Page_115'>[Pg 115]</a></span>” Stephen said. “I didn’t mean to break +in on any interview; I came over to give you back your freedom. If you +ever cared enough for me to marry me, the time has gone by. I am willing +to own that I over-persuaded you, but I am not the man to take a girl +against her inclinations, so we will say good-by and end the thing here +and now. I can only wish”—here his smothered rage at fate almost choked +him—“that, when you were selecting another husband, you had chosen a +whole man!”</p> + +<p>Rose quivered with the scorn of his tone. “Size isn’t everything!” she +blazed.</p> + +<p>“Not in bodies, perhaps; but it counts for something in hearts and +brains, and it is convenient to have a sense of honor that’s at least as +big as a grain of mustard-seed.”</p> + +<p>“Claude Merrill is not dishonorable,” Rose exclaimed impetuously; “or at +least he isn’t as bad as you think: he has never asked me to marry him.”</p> + +<p>“Then he probably was not quite ready<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_116' id='Page_116'>[Pg 116]</a></span> to speak, or perhaps you were not +quite ready to hear,” retorted Stephen, bitterly; “but don’t let us have +words,—there’ll be enough to regret without adding those. I have seen, +ever since New Year’s, that you were not really happy or contented; only +I wouldn’t allow it to myself: I kept hoping against hope that I was +mistaken. There have been times when I would have married you, willing +or unwilling, but I didn’t love you so well then; and now that there’s +another man in the case, it’s different, and I’m strong enough to do the +right thing. Follow your heart and be happy; in a year or two I shall be +glad I had the grit to tell you so. Good-by, Rose!”</p> + +<p>Rose, pale with amazement, summoned all her pride, and drawing the +turquoise engagement ring from her finger, handed it silently to +Stephen, hiding her face as he flung it vehemently down the river-bank. +His dull eyes followed it and half uncomprehendingly saw it settle and +glisten in a nest of brown pine-needles. Then he put out his hand for a +last clasp and strode away without a word.</p> + +<div class='figcenter' style='width: 300px; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'> +<a name='illus-007' id='illus-007'></a> +<img src='images/rose-7.jpg' alt='HIDING HER FACE AS HE FLUNG IT DOWN THE RIVER-BANK' title='' /><br /> +<span class='caption'>HIDING HER FACE AS HE FLUNG IT DOWN THE RIVER-BANK</span> +</div> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_117' id='Page_117'>[Pg 117]</a></span>Presently Rose heard first the scrape of his boat on the sand, then the +soft sound of his paddles against the water, then nothing but the +squirrels and the woodpeckers and the thrushes, then not even +these,—nothing but the beating of her own heart.</p> + +<p>She sat down heavily, feeling as if she were wide awake for the first +time in many weeks. How had things come to this pass with her?</p> + +<p>Claude Merrill had flattered her vanity and given her some moments of +restlessness and dissatisfaction with her lot; but he had not until +to-day really touched her heart or tempted her, even momentarily, from +her allegiance to Stephen. His eyes had always looked unspeakable +things; his voice had seemed to breathe feelings that he had never dared +put in words; but to-day he had really stirred her, for although he<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_118' id='Page_118'>[Pg 118]</a></span> had +still been vague, it was easy to see that his love for her had passed +all bounds of discretion. She remembered his impassioned farewells, his +despair, his doubt as to whether he could forget her by plunging into +the vortex of business, or whether he had better end it all in the +river, as so many other broken-hearted fellows had done. She had been +touched by his misery, even against her better judgment; and she had +intended to confess it all to Stephen sometime, telling him that she +should never again accept attentions from a stranger, lest a tragedy +like this should happen twice in a lifetime.</p> + +<p>She had imagined that Stephen would be his large-minded, great-hearted, +magnanimous self, and beg her to forget this fascinating will-o’the-wisp +by resting in his deeper, serener love. She had meant to be contrite and +faithful, praying nightly that poor Claude might live down his present +anguish, of which she had been the innocent cause.<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_119' id='Page_119'>[Pg 119]</a></span></p> + +<p>Instead, what had happened? She had been put altogether in the wrong. +Stephen had almost cast her off, and that, too, without argument. He had +given her her liberty before she had asked for it, taking it for +granted, without question, that she desired to be rid of him. Instead of +comforting her in her remorse, or sympathizing with her for so nobly +refusing to shine in Claude’s larger world of Boston, Stephen had +assumed that she was disloyal in every particular.</p> + +<p>And pray how was she to cope with such a disagreeable and complicated +situation?</p> + +<p>It would not be long before the gossips rolled under their tongues the +delicious morsel of a broken engagement, and sooner or later she must +brave the displeasure of her grandmother.</p> + +<p>And the little house—that was worse than anything. Her tears flowed +faster as she thought of Stephen’s joy in it, of his faithful labor, of +the savings he had invested<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_120' id='Page_120'>[Pg 120]</a></span> in it. She hated and despised her self when +she thought of the house, and for the first time in her life she +realized the limitations of her nature, the poverty of her ideals.</p> + +<p>What should she do? She had lost Stephen and ruined his life. Now, in +order that she need not blight a second career, must she contrive to +return Claude’s love! To be sure, she thought, it seemed indecent to +marry any other man than Stephen, when they had built a house together, +and chosen wall-papers, and a kitchen stove, and dining-room chairs; but +was it not the only way to evade the difficulties?</p> + +<p>Suppose that Stephen, in a fit of pique, should ask somebody else to +share the new cottage?</p> + +<p>As this dreadful possibility came into view, Rose’s sobs actually +frightened the birds and the squirrels. She paced back and forth under +the trees, wondering how<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_121' id='Page_121'>[Pg 121]</a></span> she could have been engaged to a man for eight +months and know so little about him as she seemed to know about Stephen +Waterman to-day. Who would have believed he could be so autocratic, so +severe, so unapproachable! Who could have foreseen that she, Rose Wiley, +would ever be given up to another man,—handed over as coolly as if she +had been a bale of cotton? She wanted to return Claude Merrill’s love +because it was the only way out of the tangle; but at the moment she +almost hated him for making so much trouble, for hurting Stephen, for +abasing her in her own eyes, and, above all, for giving her rustic lover +the chance of impersonating an injured emperor.</p> + +<p>It did not simplify the situation to have Mite Shapley come in during +the evening and run upstairs, uninvited, to sit on the toot of her bed +and chatter.</p> + +<p>Rose had closed her blinds and lay in the dark, pleading a headache.<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_122' id='Page_122'>[Pg 122]</a></span></p> + +<p>Mite was in high feather. She had met Claude Merrill going to the +station that afternoon. He was much too early for the train, which the +station agent reported to be behind time, so he had asked her to take a +drive. She didn’t know how it happened, for he looked at his watch every +now and then; but, anyway, they got to laughing and “carrying on,” and +when they came back to the station the train had gone. Wasn’t that the +greatest joke of the season? What did Rose suppose they did next?</p> + +<p>Rose didn’t know and didn’t care; her head ached too badly.</p> + +<p>Well, they had driven to Wareham, and Claude had hired a livery team +there, and had been taken into Portland with his trunk, and she had +brought Mrs. Brooks’s horse back to Edgewood. Wasn’t that ridiculous? +And hadn’t she cut out Rose where she least expected?</p> + +<p>Rose was distinctly apathetic, and Mite<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_123' id='Page_123'>[Pg 123]</a></span> Shapley departed after a very +brief call, leaving behind her an entirely new train of thought.</p> + +<p>If Claude Merrill were so love-blighted that he could only by the +greatest self-control keep from flinging himself into the river, how +could he conceal his sufferings so completely from Mite Shapley,—little +shallow-pated, scheming coquette?</p> + +<p>“So that pretty Merrill feller has gone, has he, mother?” inquired Old +Kennebec that night, as he took off his wet shoes and warmed his feet at +the kitchen oven. “Well, it ain’t a mite too soon. I allers distrust +that pink-an’-white, rosy-posy kind of a man. One of the most turrible +things that ever happened in Gard’ner was brought about by jest sech a +feller. Mothers hedn’t hardly ought to name their boy babies Claude +without they expect ’em to play the dickens with the girls. I don’ know +nothin’ ’bout the fust Claude, there ain’t none of<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_124' id='Page_124'>[Pg 124]</a></span> ’em in the Bible, +air they, but whoever he was, I bate ye he hed a deceivin’ tongue. If it +hedn’t be’n for me, that Claude in Gard’ner would ’a’ run away with my +brother’s fust wife; an’ I’ll tell ye jest how I contrived to put a +spoke in his wheel.”</p> + +<p>But Mrs. Wiley, being already somewhat familiar with the circumstances, +had taken her candle and retired to her virtuous couch.</p> + +<hr class='major' /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'> +<a name='ROSE_SEES_THE_WORLD' id='ROSE_SEES_THE_WORLD'></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_125' id='Page_125'>[Pg 125]</a></span> +<h2>ROSE SEES THE WORLD</h2> +</div> + +<p>Was this the world, after all? Rose asked herself; and, if so, what was +amiss with it, and where was the charm, the bewilderment, the +intoxication, the glamour?</p> + +<p>She had been glad to come to Boston, for the last two weeks in Edgewood +had proved intolerable. She had always been a favorite heretofore, from +the days when the boys fought for the privilege of dragging her sled up +the hills, and filling her tiny mitten with peppermints, down to the +year when she came home from the Wareham Female Seminary, an +acknowledged belle and beauty. Suddenly she had felt her popularity +dwindling. There was no real change in the demeanor of her +acquaintances, but<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_126' id='Page_126'>[Pg 126]</a></span> there was a certain subtle difference of atmosphere. +Everybody sympathized tacitly with Stephen, and she did not wonder, for +there were times when she secretly took his part against herself. Only a +few candid friends had referred to the rupture openly in conversation, +but these had been blunt in their disapproval.</p> + +<p>It seemed part of her ill fortune that just at this time Rufus should be +threatened with partial blindness, and that Stephen’s heart, already +sore, should be torn with new anxieties. She could hardly bear to see +the doctor’s carriage drive by day after day, and hear night after night +that Rufus was unresigned, melancholy, half mad; while Stephen, as the +doctor said, was brother, mother, and father in one, as gentle as a +woman, as firm as Gibraltar.</p> + +<p>These foes to her peace of mind all came from within; but without was +the hourly reproach of her grandmother, whose scorching tongue touched +every sensitive<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_127' id='Page_127'>[Pg 127]</a></span> spot in the girl’s nature and burned it like fire.</p> + +<p>Finally a way of escape opened. Mrs. Wealthy Brooks, who had always been +rheumatic, grew suddenly worse. She had heard of a “magnetic” physician +in Boston, also of one who used electricity with wonderful effect, and +she announced her intention of taking both treatments impartially and +alternately. The neighbors were quite willing that Wealthy Ann Brooks +should spend the deceased Ezra’s money in any way she pleased,—she had +earned it, goodness knows, by living with him for twenty-five +years,—but before the day for her departure arrived her right arm and +knee became so much more painful that it was impossible for her to +travel alone.</p> + +<p>At this juncture Rose was called upon to act as nurse and companion in a +friendly way. She seized the opportunity hungrily as a way out of her +present trouble; but,<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_128' id='Page_128'>[Pg 128]</a></span> knowing what Mrs. Brooks’s temper was in time of +health, she could see clearly what it was likely to prove when pain and +anguish wrung the brow.</p> + +<p>Rose had been in Boston now for some weeks, and she was sitting in the +Joy Street boarding-house,—Joy Street, forsooth! It was nearly bedtime, +and she was looking out upon a huddle of roofs and back yards, upon a +landscape filled with clothes-lines, ash-barrels, and ill-fed cats. +There were no sleek country tabbies, with the memory in their eyes of +tasted cream, nothing but city-born, city-bred, thin, despairing cats of +the pavement, cats no more forlorn than Rose herself.</p> + +<div class='figcenter' style='width: 400px; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'> +<a name='illus-008' id='illus-008'></a> +<img src='images/rose-8.jpg' alt='SHE HAD GONE WITH MAUDE TO CLAUDE’S STORE' title='' /><br /> +<span class='caption'>SHE HAD GONE WITH MAUDE TO CLAUDE’S STORE</span> +</div> + +<p>She had “seen Boston,” for she had accompanied Mrs. Brooks in the +horse-cars daily to the two different temples of healing where that lady +worshipped and offered sacrifices. She had also gone with Maude +Arthurlena to Claude Merrill’s store to buy pair of gloves, and had +overheard Miss Di<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_129' id='Page_129'>[Pg 129]</a></span>x (the fashionable “lady-assistant” before mentioned) +say to Miss Brackett of the ribbon department, that she thought Mr. +Merrill must have worn his blinders that time he stayed so long in +Edgewood. This bit of polished irony was unintelligible to Rose at +first, but she mastered it after an hour’s reflection. She wasn’t +looking her best that day, she knew; the cotton dresses that seemed so +pretty at home were common and countrified here, and her best black +cashmere looked cheap and shapeless beside Miss Dix’s brilliantine. Miss +Dix’s figure was her strong point, and her dressmaker was particularly +skillful in the arts of suggestion, concealment, and revelation. Beauty +has its chosen backgrounds. Rose in white dimity, standing knee deep in +her blossoming brier bushes, the river running at her feet, dark pine +trees behind her graceful head, sounded depths and touched heights of +harmony forever beyond the reach of the modish Miss Dix, but she was +out<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_130' id='Page_130'>[Pg 130]</a></span> of her element and suffered accordingly.</p> + +<p>Rose had gone to walk with Claude one evening when she first arrived. He +had shown her the State House and the Park Street Church, and sat with +her on one of the benches in the Common until nearly ten. She knew that +Mrs. Brooks had told her nephew of the broken engagement, but he made no +reference to the matter, save to congratulate her that she was rid of a +man who was so clumsy, so dull and behind the times, as Stephen +Waterman, saying that he had always marveled she could engage herself to +anybody who could insult her by offering her a turquoise ring.</p> + +<p>Claude was very interesting that evening, Rose thought, but rather +gloomy and unlike his former self. He referred to his grave +responsibilities, to the frail health of Maude Arthurlena, and to the +vicissitudes of business. He vaguely intimated that his<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_131' id='Page_131'>[Pg 131]</a></span> daily life in +the store was not so pleasant as it had been formerly; that there were +“those” (he would speak no more plainly) who embarrassed him with +undesired attentions, “those” who, without the smallest shadow of right, +vexed him with petty jealousies.</p> + +<p>Rose dared not ask questions on so delicate a topic, but she remembered +in a flash Miss Dix’s heavy eyebrows, snapping eyes, and high color. +Claude seemed very happy that Rose had come to Boston, though he was +surprised, knowing what a trial his aunt must be, now that she was so +helpless. It was unfortunate, also, that Rose could not go on excursions +without leaving his aunt alone, or he should have been glad to offer his +escort. He pressed her hand when he left her at her door, telling her +she could never realize what a comfort her friendship was to him; could +never imagine how thankful he was that she had courageously freed +herself from ties that in time would<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_132' id='Page_132'>[Pg 132]</a></span> have made her wretched. His heart +was full, he said, of feelings he dared not utter; but in the near +future, when certain clouds had rolled by, he would unlock its +treasures, and then—but no more to-night: he could not trust himself.</p> + +<p>Rose felt as if she were assuming one of the characters in a mysterious +romance, such as unfolded itself only in books or in Boston; but, +thrilling as it was, it was nevertheless extremely unsatisfactory.</p> + +<p>Convinced that Claude Merrill was passionately in love with her, one of +her reasons for coming to Boston had been to fall more deeply in love +with him, and thus heal some, at least, of the wounds she had inflicted. +It may have been a foolish idea, but after three weeks it seemed still +worse,—a useless one; for after several interviews she felt herself +drifting farther and farther from Claude; and if he felt any burning +ambition to make her his own, he certainly concealed it with admirable +art.<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_133' id='Page_133'>[Pg 133]</a></span> Given up, with the most offensive magnanimity, by Stephen, and not +greatly desired by Claude,—that seemed the present status of proud Rose +Wiley of the Brier Neighborhood.</p> + +<p>It was June, she remembered, as she leaned out of the open window; at +least it was June in Edgewood, and she supposed for convenience’s sake +they called it June in Boston. Not that it mattered much what the poor +city prisoners called it. How beautiful the river would be at home, with +the trees along the banks in full leaf! How she hungered and thirsted +for the river,—to see it sparkle in the sunlight; to watch the +moonglade stretching from one bank to the other; to hear the soft lap of +the water on the shore, and the distant murmur of the falls at the +bridge! And the Brier Neighborhood would be at its loveliest, for the +wild roses were in blossom by now. And the little house! How sweet it +must look under the shade of the elms,<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_134' id='Page_134'>[Pg 134]</a></span> with the Saco rippling at the +back! Was poor Rufus still lying in a darkened room, and was Stephen +nursing him,—disappointed Stephen,—dear, noble old Stephen?</p> + +<hr class='major' /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'> +<a name='GOLD_AND_PINCHBECK' id='GOLD_AND_PINCHBECK'></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_135' id='Page_135'>[Pg 135]</a></span> +<h2>GOLD AND PINCHBECK</h2> +</div> + +<p>Just then Mrs. Brooks groaned in the next room and called Rose, who went +in to minister to her real needs, or to condole with her fancied ones, +whichever course of action appeared to be the more agreeable at the +moment.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Brooks desired conversation, it seemed, or at least she desired an +audience for a monologue, for she recognized no antiphonal obligations +on the part of her listeners. The doctors were not doing her a speck of +good, and she was just squandering money in a miserable boarding-house, +when she might be enjoying poor health in her own home; and she didn’t +believe her hens were receiving proper care, and she had forgotten to +pull down the shades in the<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_136' id='Page_136'>[Pg 136]</a></span> spare room, and the sun would fade the +carpet out all white before she got back, and she didn’t believe Dr. +Smith’s magnetism was any more use than a cat’s foot, nor Dr. Robinson’s +electricity any better than a bumblebee’s buzz, and she had a great mind +to go home and try Dr. Lord from Bonnie Eagle; and there was a letter +for Rose on the bureau, which had come before supper, but the shiftless, +lazy, worthless landlady had forgotten to send it up till just now.</p> + +<p>The letter was from Mite Shapley, but Rose could read only half of it to +Mrs. Brooks,—little beside the news that the Waterman barn, the finest +barn in the whole township, had been struck by lightning and burned to +the ground. Stephen was away at the time, having taken Rufus to +Portland, where an operation on his eyes would shortly be performed at +the hospital, and one of the neighbors was sleeping at the River Farm +and taking<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_137' id='Page_137'>[Pg 137]</a></span> care of the cattle; still the house might not have been +saved but for one of Alcestis Crambry’s sudden bursts of common sense, +which occurred now quite regularly. He succeeded not only in getting the +horses out of the stalls, but gave the alarm so promptly that the whole +neighborhood was soon on the scene of action. Stephen was the only man, +Mite reminded Rose, who ever had any patience with, or took any pains to +teach, Alcestis, but he never could have expected to be rewarded in this +practical way. The barn was only partly insured; and when she had met +Stephen at the station next day, and condoled with him on his loss, he +had said: “Oh, well, Mite, a little more or less doesn’t make much +difference just now.”</p> + +<p>“The rest wouldn’t interest you, Mrs. Brooks,” said Rose, precipitately +preparing to leave the room.</p> + +<p>“Something about Claude, I suppose,” ventured that astute lady. “I think +Mite<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_138' id='Page_138'>[Pg 138]</a></span> kind of fancied him. I don’t believe he ever gave her any real +encouragement; but he’d make love to a pump, Claude Merrill would; and +so would his father before him. How my sister Abby made out to land him +we never knew, for they said he’d proposed to every woman in the town of +Bingham, not excepting the wooden Indian girl in front of the cigar +store, and not one of ’em but our Abby ever got a chance to name the +day. Abby was as set as the everlastin’ hills, and if she’d made up her +mind to have a man he couldn’t wriggle away from her nohow in the world. +It beats all how girls do run after these slick-haired, sweet-tongued, +Miss Nancy kind o’ fellers, that ain’t but little good as beaux an’ +worth less than nothing as husbands.”</p> + +<p>Rose scarcely noticed what Mrs. Brooks said, she was too anxious to read +the rest of Mite Shapley’s letter in the quiet of her own room.<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_139' id='Page_139'>[Pg 139]</a></span></p> + +<p>“Stephen looks thin and pale [so it ran on], but he does not allow +anybody to sympathize with him. I think you ought to know something that +I haven’t told you before for fear of hurting your feelings; but if I +were in your place I’d like to hear everything, and then you’ll know how +to act when you come home. Just after you left, Stephen plowed up all +the land in front of your new house,—every inch of it, all up and down +the road, between the fence and the front door-step,—and then he +planted corn where you were going to have your flower-beds.</p> + +<p>“He has closed all the blinds and hung a ‘To Let’ sign on the large elm +at the gate. Stephen never was spiteful in his life, but this looks a +little like spite. Perhaps he only wanted to save his self-respect and +let people know, that everything between you was over forever. Perhaps +he thought it would stop talk once and for all. But you won’t mind, you +lucky girl, staying nearly<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_140' id='Page_140'>[Pg 140]</a></span> three months in Boston! [So Almira purled on +in violet ink, with shaded letters.] How I wish it had come my way, +though I’m not good at rubbing rheumatic patients, even when they are +his aunt. Is he as devoted as ever? And when will it be? How do you like +the theatre? Mother thinks you won’t attend; but, by what he used to +say, I am sure church members in Boston always go to amusements.</p> + +<p style='text-align: right'>“Your loving friend,<br /> +“Almira Shapley.</p> + +<p>“P.S. They say Rufus’s doctor’s bills here, and the operation and +hospital expenses in Portland, will mount up to five hundred dollars. Of +course Stephen will be dreadfully hampered by the loss of his barn, and +maybe he wants to let your house that was to be, because he really needs +money. In that case the dooryard won’t be very attractive to tenants, +with corn planted right up to the steps and no path left! It’s two feet +tall now, and by August (just when<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_141' id='Page_141'>[Pg 141]</a></span> you were intending to move in) it +will hide the front windows. Not that you’ll care, with a diamond on +your engagement finger!”</p> + +<hr class='minor' /> + +<p>The letter was more than flesh and blood could stand, and Rose flung +herself on her bed to think and regret and repent, and, if possible, to +sob herself to sleep.</p> + +<p>She knew now that she had never admired and respected Stephen so much as +at the moment when, under the reproach of his eyes, she had given him +back his ring. When she left Edgewood and parted with him forever she +had really loved him better than when she had promised to marry him.</p> + +<p>Claude Merrill, on his native Boston heath, did not appear the romantic, +inspiring figure he had once been in her eyes. A week ago she distrusted +him; to-night she despised him.</p> + +<p>What had happened to Rose was the<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_142' id='Page_142'>[Pg 142]</a></span> dilation of her vision. She saw +things under a wider sky and in a clearer light. Above all, her heart +was wrung with pity for Stephen—Stephen, with no comforting woman’s +hand to help him in his sore trouble; Stephen, bearing his losses alone, +his burdens and anxieties alone, his nursing and daily work alone. Oh, +how she felt herself needed! Needed! that was the magic word that +unlocked her better nature. “Darkness is the time for making roots and +establishing plants, whether of the soil or of the soul,” and all at +once Rose had become a woman: a little one, perhaps, but a whole +woman—and a bit of an angel, too, with healing in her wings. When and +how had this metamorphosis come about? Last summer the fragile +brier-rose had hung over the river and looked at its pretty reflection +in the placid surface of the water. Its few buds and blossoms were so +lovely, it sighed for nothing more. The changes in the plant had<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_143' id='Page_143'>[Pg 143]</a></span> been +wrought secretly and silently. In some mysterious way, as common to soul +as to plant life, the roots had gathered in more nourishment from the +earth, they had stored up strength and force, and all at once there was +a marvelous fructifying of the plant, hardiness of stalk, new shoots +everywhere, vigorous leafage, and a shower of blossoms.</p> + +<p>But everything was awry: Boston was a failure; Claude was a weakling and +a flirt; her turquoise ring was lying on the river-bank; Stephen did not +love her any longer; her flower-beds were plowed up and planted in corn; +and the cottage that Stephen had built and she had furnished, that +beloved cottage, was to let.</p> + +<p>She was in Boston; but what did that amount to, after all? What was the +State House to a bleeding heart, or the Old South Church to a pride +wounded like hers?</p> + +<p>At last she fell asleep, but it was only<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_144' id='Page_144'>[Pg 144]</a></span> by stopping her ears to the +noises of the city streets and making herself imagine the sound of the +river rippling under her bedroom windows at home. The back yards of +Boston faded, and in their place came the banks of the Saco, strewn with +pine needles, fragrant with wild flowers. Then there was the bit of +sunny beach, where Stephen moored his boat. She could hear the sound of +his paddle. Boston lovers came a-courting in the horse-cars, but hers +had floated down stream to her just at dusk in a birch-bark canoe, or +sometimes, in the moonlight, on a couple of logs rafted together.</p> + +<p>But it was all over now, and she could see only Stephen’s stern face as +he flung the despised turquoise ring down the river bank.</p> + +<hr class='major' /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'> +<a name='A_COUNTRY_CHEVALIER' id='A_COUNTRY_CHEVALIER'></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_145' id='Page_145'>[Pg 145]</a></span> +<h2>A COUNTRY CHEVALIER</h2> +</div> + +<p>It was early in August when Mrs. Wealthy Brooks announced her speedy +return from Boston to Edgewood.</p> + +<p>“It’s jest as well Rose is comin’ back,” said Mr. Wiley to his wife. “I +never favored her goin’ to Boston, where that rosy-posy Claude feller is. +When he was down here he was kep’ kind o’ tied up in a boxstall, but +there he’s caperin’ loose round the pastur’.”</p> + +<p>“I should think Rose would be ashamed to come back, after the way she’s +carried on,” remarked Mrs. Wiley, “but if she needed punishment I guess +she’s got it bein’ comp’ny-keeper to Wealthy Ann Brooks. Bein’ a church +member in good an’ reg’lar standin’, I s’pose Wealthy Ann’ll go to<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_146' id='Page_146'>[Pg 146]</a></span> +heaven, but I can only say that it would be a sight pleasanter place for +a good many if she didn’t.”</p> + +<p>“Rose has be’n foolish an’ flirty an’ wrong-headed,” allowed her +grandfather; “but it won’t do no good to treat her like a hardened +criminile, same’s you did afore she went away. She ain’t hardly got her +wisdom teeth cut, in love affairs! She ain’t broke the laws of the State +o’ Maine, nor any o’ the ten commandments; she ain’t disgraced the +family, an’ there’s a chance for her to reform, seein’ as how she ain’t +twenty year old yet. I was turrible wild an’ hot-headed myself afore you +ketched me an’ tamed me down.”</p> + +<p>“You ain’t so tame now as I wish you was,” Mrs. Wiley replied testily.</p> + +<p>“If you could smoke a clay pipe ’t would calm your nerves, mother, an’ +help you to git some philosophy inter you; you need a little philosophy +turrible bad.”<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_147' id='Page_147'>[Pg 147]</a></span></p> + +<p>“I need patience consid’able more,” was Mrs. Wiley’s withering retort.</p> + +<p>“That’s the way with folks,” said Old Kennebec reflectively, as he went +on peacefully puffing. “If you try to indoose ’em to take an int’rest in +a bran’-new virtue, they won’t look at it; but they’ll run down a side +street an’ buy half a yard more o’ some turrible old shopworn trait o’ +character that they’ve kep’ in stock all their lives, an’ that +everybody’s sick to death of. There was a man in Gard’ner”—</p> + +<p>But alas! the experiences of the Gardiner man, though told in the same +delightful fashion that had won Mrs. Wiley’s heart many years before, +now fell upon the empty air. In these years of Old Kennebec’s +“anecdotage,” his pipe was his best listener and his truest confidant.</p> + +<p>Mr. Wiley’s constant intercessions with his wife made Rose’s home-coming +somewhat easier, and the sight of her own room and belongings soothed +her troubled spirit,<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_148' id='Page_148'>[Pg 148]</a></span> but the days went on, and nothing happened to +change the situation. She had lost a lover, that was all, and there were +plenty more to choose from, or there always had been; but the only one +she wanted was the one who made no sign. She used to think that she +could twist Stephen around her little finger; that she had only to +beckon to him and he would follow her to the ends of the earth. Now fear +had entered her heart. She no longer felt sure, because she no longer +felt worthy, of him, and feeling both uncertainty and unworthiness, her +lips were sealed and she was rendered incapable of making any bid for +forgiveness.</p> + +<p>So the little world of Pleasant River went on, to all outward seeming, +as it had ever gone. On one side of the stream a girl’s heart was +longing, and pining, and sickening, with hope deferred, and growing, +too, with such astonishing rapidity that the very angels marveled! And +on the other, a man’s whole vision of life an<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_149' id='Page_149'>[Pg 149]</a></span> duty was widening and +deepening under the fructifying influence of his sorrow.</p> + +<p>The corn waved high and green in front of the vacant riverside cottage, +but Stephen sent no word or message to Rose. He had seen her once, but +only from a distance. She seemed paler and thinner, he thought,—the +result; probably, of her metropolitan gayeties. He heard no rumor of any +engagement, and he wondered if it were possible that her love for Claude +Merrill had not, after all, been returned in kind. This seemed a wild +impossibility. His mind refused to entertain the supposition that any +man on earth could resist falling in love with Rose, or, having fallen +in, that he could ever contrive to climb out. So he worked on at his +farm harder than ever, and grew soberer and more careworn daily. Rufus +had never seemed so near and dear to him as in these weeks when he had +lived under the shadow of threatened blindness. The burning of the barn +and the<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_150' id='Page_150'>[Pg 150]</a></span> strain upon their slender property brought the brothers +together shoulder to shoulder.</p> + +<p>“If you lose your girl, Steve,” said the boy, “and I lose my eyesight, +and we both lose the barn, why, it’ll be us two against the world, for a +spell!”</p> + +<p>The “To Let” sign on the little house was an arrant piece of hypocrisy. +Nothing but the direst extremity could have caused him to allow an alien +step on that sacred threshold. The plowing up of the flower-beds and +planting of the corn had served a double purpose. It showed the too +curious public the finality of his break with Rose and her absolute +freedom; it also prevented them from suspecting that he still entered +the place. His visits were not many, but he could not bear to let the +dust settle on the furniture that he and Rose had chosen together; and +whenever he locked the door and went back to the River Farm, he thought +of a verse in the Bible: “Therefore the Lord God sent him<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_151' id='Page_151'>[Pg 151]</a></span> forth from +the Garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken.”</p> + +<p>It was now Friday of the last week in August. The river was full of +logs, thousands upon thousands of them covering the surface of the water +from the bridge almost up to the Brier Neighborhood.</p> + +<p>The Edgewood drive was late, owing to a long drought and low water; but +it was to begin on the following Monday, and Lije Dennett and his under +boss were looking over the situation and planning the campaign. As they +leaned over the bridge-rail they saw Mr. Wiley driving down the river +road. When he caught sight of them he hitched the old white horse at the +corner and walked toward them, filling his pipe the while in his usual +leisurely manner.</p> + +<p>“We’re not busy this forenoon,” said Lije Dennett. “S’pose we stand +right here and let Old Kennebec have his say out for<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_152' id='Page_152'>[Pg 152]</a></span> once. We’ve never +heard the end of one of his stories, an’ he’s be’n talkin’ for twenty +years.”</p> + +<p>“All right,” rejoined his companion, with a broad grin at the idea. “I’m +willin’, if you are; but who’s goin’ to tell our fam’lies the reason +we’ve deserted ’em! I bate yer we sha’n’t budge till the crack o’ doom. +The road commissioner’ll come along once a year and mend the bridge +under our feet, but Old Kennebec’ll talk straight on till the day o’ +jedgment.”</p> + +<p>Mr. Wiley had one of the most enjoyable mornings of his life, and felt +that after half a century of neglect his powers were at last appreciated +by his fellow-citizens.</p> + +<p>He proposed numerous strategic movements to be made upon the logs, +whereby they would move more swiftly than usual. He described several +successful drives on the Kennebec, when the logs had melted down the +river almost by magic, owing to his generalship; and he paid a tribute, +in<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_153' id='Page_153'>[Pg 153]</a></span> passing, to the docility of the boss, who on that occasion had never +moved a single log without asking his advice.</p> + +<p>From this topic he proceeded genially to narrate the life-histories of +the boss, the under boss, and several Indians belonging to the +crew,—histories in which he himself played a gallant and conspicuous +part. The conversation then drifted naturally to the exploits of +river-drivers in general, and Mr. Wiley narrated the sorts of feats in +log-riding, pickpole-throwing, and the shooting of rapids that he had +done in his youth. These stories were such as had seldom been heard by +the ear of man; and, as they passed into circulation instantaneously, we +are probably enjoying some of them to this day.</p> + +<p>They were still being told when a Crambry child appeared on the bridge, +bearing a note for the old man.</p> + +<p>Upon reading it he moved off rapidly in the direction of the store, +ejaculating:<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_154' id='Page_154'>[Pg 154]</a></span></p> + +<p>“Bless my soul! I clean forgot that saleratus, and mother’s settin’ at +the kitchen table with the bowl in her lap, waitin’ for it! Got so +int’rested in your list’nin’ I never thought o’ the time.”</p> + +<p>The connubial discussion that followed this breach of discipline began +on the arrival of the saleratus, and lasted through supper; and Rose +went to bed almost immediately afterward for very dullness and apathy. +Her life stretched out before her in the most aimless and monotonous +fashion. She saw nothing but heartache in the future; and that she +richly deserved it made it none the easier to bear.</p> + +<p>Feeling feverish and sleepless, she slipped on her gray Shaker cloak and +stole quietly downstairs for a breath of air. Her grandfather and +grandmother were talking on the piazza, and good humor seemed to have +been restored.</p> + +<p>“I was over to the tavern to-night,” she heard him say, as she sat down +at a little<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_155' id='Page_155'>[Pg 155]</a></span> distance. “I was over to the tavern to-night, an’ a feller +from Gorham got to talkin’ an’ braggin’ ’bout what a stock o’ goods they +kep’ in the store over there. ‘An’,’ says I, ‘I bate ye dollars to +doughnuts that there hain’t a darn thing ye can ask for at Bill Pike’s +store at Pleasant River that he can’t go down cellar, or up attic, or +out in the barn chamber an’ git for ye.’ Well, sir, he took me up, an’ I +borrered the money of Joe Dennett, who held the stakes, an’ we went +right over to Bill Pike’s with all the boys follerin’ on behind. An’ the +Gorham man never let on what he was goin’ to ask for till the hull crowd +of us got inside the store. Then says he, as p’lite as a basket o’ +chips, ‘Mr. Pike, I’d like to buy a pulpit if you can oblige me with +one.’</p> + +<p>“Bill scratched his head an’ I held my breath. Then says he, ‘Pears to +me I’d ought to hev a pulpit or two, if I can jest remember where I keep +’em. I don’t never cal’late to be out o’ pulpits, but I’m so<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_156' id='Page_156'>[Pg 156]</a></span> plagued +for room I can’t keep ’em in here with the groc’ries. Jim (that’s his +new store boy), you jest take a lantern an’ run out in the far corner o’ +the shed, at the end o’ the hickory woodpile, an’ see how many pulpits +we’ve got in stock!’ Well, Jim run out, an’ when he come back he says, +‘We’ve got two, Mr. Pike. Shall I bring one of ’em in?’</p> + +<p>“At that the boys all bust out laughin’ an’ hollerin’ an’ tauntin’ the +Gorham man, an’ he paid up with a good will, I tell ye!”</p> + +<p>“I don’t approve of bettin’,” said Mrs. Wiley grimly, “but I’ll try to +sanctify the money by usin’ it for a new wash-boiler.”</p> + +<p>“The fact is,” explained old Kennebec, somewhat confused, “that the boys +made me spend every cent of it then an’ there.”</p> + +<p>Rose heard her grandmother’s caustic reply, and then paid no further +attention until her keen ear caught the sound of Stephen’s name. It was +a part of her<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_157' id='Page_157'>[Pg 157]</a></span> unhappiness that since her broken engagement no one would +ever allude to him, and she longed to hear him mentioned, so that +perchance she could get some inkling of his movements.</p> + +<div class='figcenter' style='width: 450px; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'> +<a name='illus-009' id='illus-009'></a> +<img src='images/rose-9.jpg' alt='“AS LONG AS STEPHEN WATERMAN’S ALIVE, ROSE WILEY CAN HAVE HIM#8221;' title='' /><br /> +<span class='caption'>“AS LONG AS STEPHEN WATERMAN’S ALIVE, ROSE WILEY CAN HAVE HIM”</span> +</div> + +<p>“I met Stephen to-night for the first time in a week,” said Mr. Wiley. +“He kind o’ keeps out o’ my way lately. He’s goin’ to drive his span +into Portland tomorrow mornin’ and bring Rufus home from the hospital +Sunday afternoon. The doctors think they’ve made a success of their job, +but Rufus has got to be bandaged up a spell longer. Stephen is goin’ to +join the drive Monday mornin’ at the bridge here, so I’ll get the latest +news o’ the boy. Land! I’ll be turrible glad if he gets out with his +eyesight, if it’s only for Steve’s sake. He’s a turrible good fellow, +Steve is! He said something to-night that made me set more store by him +than ever. I told you I hedn’t heard an unkind word ag’in’ Rose sence +she come home from<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_158' id='Page_158'>[Pg 158]</a></span> Boston, an’ no more I hev till this evenin: There +was two or three fellers talkin’ in the post-office, an’ they didn’t +suspicion I was settin’ on the steps outside the screen door. That Jim +Jenkins, that Rose so everlastin’ly snubbed at the tavern dance, spoke +up, an’ says he: ‘This time last year Rose Wiley could ’a’ hed the +choice of any man on the river, an’ now I bet ye she can’t get nary +one.’</p> + +<p>“Steve was there, jest goin’ out the door, with some bags o’ coffee an’ +sugar under his arm.</p> + +<p>“‘I guess you’re mistaken about that,’ he says, speakin’ up jest like +lightnin’; ‘so long as Stephen Waterman’s alive, Rose Wiley can have +him, for one; and that everybody’s welcome to know.’</p> + +<p>“He spoke right out, loud an’ plain, jest as if he was readin’ the +Declaration of Independence. I expected the boys would everlastin’ly +poke fun at him, but they never said a word. I guess his eyes flashed,<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_159' id='Page_159'>[Pg 159]</a></span> +for he come out the screen door, slammin’ it after him, and stalked by +me as if he was too worked up to notice anything or anybody. I didn’t +foiler him, for his long legs git over the ground too fast for me, but +thinks I, ‘Mebbe I’ll hev some use for my lemonade-set after all.’”</p> + +<p>“I hope to the land you will,” responded Mrs. Wiley, “for I’m about sick +o’ movin’ it round when I sweep under my bed. And I shall be glad if +Rose an’ Stephen do make it up, for Wealthy Ann Brooks’s gossip is too +much for a Christian woman to stand.”</p> + + + +<hr class='major' /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'> +<a name='HOUSEBREAKING' id='HOUSEBREAKING'></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_160' id='Page_160'>[Pg 160]</a></span> +<h2>HOUSEBREAKING</h2> +</div> + + +<p>Where was the pale Rose, the faded Rose, that crept noiselessly down +from her room, wanting neither to speak nor to be spoken to? Nobody ever +knew. She vanished forever, and in her place a thing of sparkles and +dimples flashed up the stairway and closed the door softly. There was a +streak of moonshine lying across the bare floor, and a merry ghost, with +dressing-gown held prettily away from bare feet, danced a gay fandango +among the yellow moonbeams. There were breathless flights to the open +window, and kisses thrown in the direction of the River Farm. There were +impressive declamations at the looking-glass, where a radiant creature +pointed to her reflection<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_161' id='Page_161'>[Pg 161]</a></span> and whispered, “Worthless little pig, he +loves you, after all!”</p> + +<p>Then, when quiet joy had taken the place of mad delight, there was a +swoop down upon the floor, an impetuous hiding of brimming eyes in the +white counterpane, and a dozen impassioned promises to herself and to +something higher than herself, to be a better girl.</p> + +<p>The mood lasted, and deepened, and still Rose did not move. Her heart +was on its knees before Stephen’s faithful love, his chivalry, his +strength. Her troubled spirit, like a frail boat tossed about in the +rapids, seemed entering a quiet harbor, where there were protecting +shores and a still, still evening star. Her sails were all torn and +drooping, but the harbor was in sight, and the poor little +weather-beaten craft could rest in peace.</p> + +<p>A period of grave reflection now ensued,—under the bedclothes, where +one could think better. Suddenly an inspiration seized<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_162' id='Page_162'>[Pg 162]</a></span> her,—an +inspiration so original, so delicious, and above all so humble and +praiseworthy, that it brought her head from her pillow, and she sat bolt +upright, clapping her hands like a child.</p> + +<p>“The very thing!” she whispered to herself gleefully. “It will take +courage, but I’m sure of my ground after what he said before them all, +and I’ll do it. Grandma in Biddeford buying church carpets, Stephen in +Portland—was ever such a chance?”</p> + +<p>The same glowing Rose came downstairs, two steps at a time, next +morning, bade her grandmother good-by with suspicious pleasure, and sent +her grandfather away on an errand which, with attendant conversation, +would consume half the day. Then bundles after bundles and baskets after +baskets were packed into the wagon,—behind the seat, beneath the seat, +and finally under the lap-robe. She gave a dramatic flourish to the +whip, drove across<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_163' id='Page_163'>[Pg 163]</a></span> the bridge, went through Pleasant River village, and +up the leafy road to the little house, stared the “To Let” sign +scornfully in the eye, alighted, and ran like a deer through the aisles +of waving corn, past the kitchen windows, to the back door.</p> + +<p>“If he has kept the big key in the old place under the stone, where we +both used to find it, then he hasn’t forgotten me—or anything,” thought +Rose.</p> + +<p>The key was there, and Rose lifted it with a sob of gratitude. It was +but five minutes’ work to carry all the bundles from the wagon to the +back steps, and another five to lead old Tom across the road into the +woods and tie him to a tree quite out of the sight of any passer-by.</p> + +<p>When, after running back, she turned the key in the lock, her heart gave +a leap almost of terror, and she started at the sound of her own +footfall. Through the open door the sunlight streamed into the dark +room. She flew to tables and chairs,<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_164' id='Page_164'>[Pg 164]</a></span> and gave a rapid sweep of the hand +over their surfaces.</p> + +<p>“He has been dusting here,—and within a few days, too,” she thought +triumphantly.</p> + +<p>The kitchen was perfection, as she always knew it would be, with one +door opening to the shaded road and the other looking on the river; +windows, too, framing the apple-orchard and the elms. She had chosen the +furniture, but how differently it looked now that it was actually in +place! The tiny shed had piles of split wood, with great boxes of +kindlings and shavings, all in readiness for the bride, who would do her +own cooking. Who but Stephen would have made the very wood ready for a +woman’s home-coming; and why had he done so much in May, when they were +not to be married until August? Then the door of the bedroom was +stealthily opened, and here Rose sat down and cried for joy and shame +and hope and fear. The very flowered paper she had refused as too<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_165' id='Page_165'>[Pg 165]</a></span> +expensive! How lovely it looked with the white chamber set! She brought +in her simple wedding outfit of blankets, bed-linen, and counterpanes, +and folded them softly in the closet; and then for the rest of the +morning she went from room to room, doing all that could remain +undiscovered, even to laying a fire in the new kitchen stove.</p> + +<p>This was the plan. Stephen must pass the house on his way from the River +Farm to the bridge, where he was to join the river-drivers on Monday +morning. She would be out of bed by the earliest peep of dawn, put on +Stephen’s favorite pink calico, leave a note for her grandmother, run +like a hare down her side of the river and up Stephen’s, steal into the +house, open blinds and windows, light the fire, and set the kettle +boiling. Then with a sharp knife she would cut down two rows of corn, +and thus make a green pathway from the front kitchen steps to the road. +Next, the false<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_166' id='Page_166'>[Pg 166]</a></span> and insulting “To Let” sign would be forcibly tweaked +from the tree and thrown into the grass. She would then lay the table in +the kitchen, and make ready the nicest breakfast that two people ever +sat down to. And oh, would two people sit down to it; or would one go +off in a rage and the other die of grief and disappointment?</p> + +<p>Then, having done all, she would wait and palpitate, and palpitate and +wait, until Stephen came. Surely no property-owner in the universe could +drive along a road, observe his corn leveled to the earth, his sign +removed, his house open, and smoke issuing from his chimney, without +going in to surprise the rogue and villain who could be guilty of such +vandalism.</p> + +<p>And when he came in?</p> + +<p>Oh, she had all day Sunday in which to forecast, with mingled dread and +gladness and suspense, that all-important, all-decisive first moment! +All day Sunday to frame<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_167' id='Page_167'>[Pg 167]</a></span> and unframe penitent speeches. All day Sunday! +Would it ever be Monday? If so, what would Tuesday bring? Would the sun +rise on happy Mrs. Stephen Waterman of Pleasant River, or on miserable +Miss Rose Wiley of the Brier Neighborhood?</p> + + +<hr class='major' /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'> +<a name='THE_DREAM_ROOM' id='THE_DREAM_ROOM'></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_168' id='Page_168'>[Pg 168]</a></span> +<h2>THE DREAM ROOM</h2> +</div> + + +<p>Long ago, when Stephen was a boy of fourteen or fifteen, he had gone +with his father to a distant town to spend the night. After an early +breakfast next morning his father had driven off for a business +interview, and left the boy to walk about during his absence. He +wandered aimlessly along a quiet side street, and threw himself down on +the grass outside a pretty garden to amuse himself as best he could.</p> + +<p>After a few minutes he heard voices, and, turning, peeped through the +bars of the gate in idle, boyish curiosity. It was a small brown house; +the kitchen door was open, and a table spread with a white cloth was set +in the middle of the room. There was a cradle in a far corner, and a +man<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_169' id='Page_169'>[Pg 169]</a></span> was seated at the table as though he might be waiting for his +breakfast.</p> + +<p>There is a kind of sentiment about the kitchen in New England, a kind of +sentiment not provoked by other rooms. Here the farmer drops in to spend +a few minutes when he comes back from the barn or field on an errand. +Here, in the great, clean, sweet, comfortable place, the busy housewife +lives, sometimes rocking the cradle, sometimes opening and shutting the +oven door, sometimes stirring the pot, darning stockings, paring +vegetables, or mixing goodies in a yellow bowl. The children sit on the +steps, stringing beans, shelling peas, or hulling berries; the cat +sleeps on the floor near the wood-box; and the visitor feels exiled if +he stays in sitting-room or parlor, for here, where the mother is always +busy, is the heart of the farm-house.</p> + +<p>There was an open back door to this kitchen, a door framed in +morning-glories, and the woman (or was she only girl?)<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_170' id='Page_170'>[Pg 170]</a></span> standing at the +stove was pretty,—oh, so pretty in Stephen’s eyes! His boyish heart +went out to her on the instant. She poured a cup of coffee and walked +with it to the table; then an unexpected, interesting thing +happened—something the boy ought not to have seen, and never forgot. +The man, putting out his hand to take the cup, looked up at the pretty +woman with a smile, and she stooped and kissed him.</p> + +<p>Stephen was fifteen. As he looked, on the instant he became a man, with +a man’s hopes, desires, ambitions. He looked eagerly, hungrily, and the +scene burned itself on the sensitive plate of his young heart, so that, +as he grew older, he could take the picture out in the dark, from time +to time, and look at it again. When he first met Rose, he did not know +precisely what she was to mean to him; but before long, when he closed +his eyes and the old familiar picture swam into his field of vision, +behold, by some spiritual chemistry, the pretty<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_171' id='Page_171'>[Pg 171]</a></span> woman’s face had given +place to that of Rose!</p> + +<p>All such teasing visions had been sternly banished during this sorrowful +summer, and it was a thoughtful, sober Stephen who drove along the road +on this mellow August morning. The dust was deep; the goldenrod waved +its imperial plumes, making the humble waysides gorgeous; the river +chattered and sparkled till it met the logs at the Brier Neighorhood, +and then, lapsing into silence, flowed steadily under them till it found +a vent for its spirits in the dashing and splashing of the falls.</p> + +<p>Haying was over; logging was to begin that day; then harvesting; then +wood-cutting; then eternal successions of plowing, sowing, reaping, +haying, logging, harvesting, and so on, to the endless end of his days. +Here and there a red or a yellow branch, painted only yesterday, caught +his eye and made him shiver. He was not<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_172' id='Page_172'>[Pg 172]</a></span> ready for winter; his heart +still craved the summer it had missed.</p> + +<p>Hello! What was that? Corn-stalks prone on the earth? Sign torn down and +lying flat in the grass? Blinds open, fire in the chimney?</p> + +<p>He leaped from the wagon, and, flinging the reins to Alcestis Crambry, +said, “Stay right here out of sight, and don’t you move till I call +you!” and striding up the green pathway, flung open the kitchen door.</p> + +<p>A forest of corn waving in the doorway at the back, morning-glories +clambering round and round the window-frames, table with shining white +cloth, kettle humming and steaming, something bubbling in a pan on the +stove, fire throwing out sweet little gleams of welcome through the open +damper. All this was taken in with one incredulous, rapturous twinkle of +an eye; but something else, too: Rose of all roses, Rose of the river, +Rose of the world, standing behind a chair, her hand pressed against +her<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_173' id='Page_173'>[Pg 173]</a></span> heart, her lips parted, her breath coming and going! She was +glowing like a jewel, glowing with the extraordinary brilliancy that +emotion gives to some women. She used to be happy in a gay, sparkling +way, like the shallow part of the stream as it chatters over white +pebbles and bright sands. Now it was a broad, steady, full happiness +like the deeps of the river under the sun.</p> + +<p>“Don’t speak, Stephen, till you hear what I have to say. It takes a good +deal of courage for a girl to do as I am doing; but I want to show how +sorry I am, and it’s the only way.” She was trembling, and the words +came faster and faster. “I’ve been very wrong and foolish, and made you +very unhappy, but I haven’t done what you would have hated most. I +haven’t been engaged to Claude Merrill; he hasn’t so much as asked me. I +am here to beg you to forgive me, to eat breakfast with me, to drive me +to the minister’s and marry me quickly, quickly, before anything +happens<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_174' id='Page_174'>[Pg 174]</a></span> to prevent us, and then to bring me home here to live all the +days of my life. Oh, Stephen dear, honestly, honestly, you haven’t lost +anything in all this long, miserable summer. I’ve suffered, too, and I’m +better worth loving than I was. Will you take me back?”</p> + +<p>Rose had a tremendous power of provoking and holding love, and Stephen +of loving. His was too generous a nature for revilings and complaints +and reproaches.</p> + +<p>The shores of his heart were strewn with the wreckage of the troubled +summer, but if the tide of love is high enough, it washes such things +out of remembrance. He just opened his arms and took Rose to his heart, +faults and all, with joy and gratitude; and she was as happy as a child +who has escaped the scolding it richly deserved, and who determines, for +very thankfulness’ sake, never to be naughty again.</p> + +<div class='figcenter' style='width: 300px; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'> +<a name='illus-010' id='illus-010'></a> +<img src='images/rose-10.jpg' alt='DON’T SPEAK, STEPHEN, TILL YOU HEAR WHAT I HAVE TO SAY' title='' /><br /> +<span class='caption'>DON’T SPEAK, STEPHEN, TILL YOU HEAR WHAT I HAVE TO SAY</span> +</div> + +<p>“You don’t know what you’ve done for me, Stephen,” she whispered, with +her face hidden on his shoulder. “I was just a common<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_175' id='Page_175'>[Pg 175]</a></span> little prickly +rosebush when you came along like a good gardener and ’grafted in’ +something better; the something better was your love, Stephen dear, and +it’s made everything different. The silly Rose you were engaged to long +ago has disappeared somewhere; I hope you won’t be able to find her +under the new leaves.”</p> + +<p>“She was all I wanted,” said Stephen.</p> + +<p>“You thought she was,” the girl answered, “because you didn’t see the +prickles, but you’d have felt them sometime. The old Rose was a selfish +thing, not good enough for you; the new Rose is going to be your wife, +and Rufus’s sister, and your mother’s daughter, all in one.”</p> + +<p>Then such a breakfast was spread as Stephen, in his sorry years of +bachelor existence, had forgotten could exist; but before he broke his +fast he ran out to the wagon and served the astonished Alcestis with his +wedding refreshments then and there, bidding him drive back to the River +Farm<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_176' id='Page_176'>[Pg 176]</a></span> and bring him a package that lay in the drawer of his +shaving-stand,--a package placed there when hot youth and love and longing +had inspired him to hurry on the marriage day.</p> + +<p>“There’s an envelope, Alcestis,” he cried, “a long envelope way, way +back in the corner, and a small box on top of it. Bring them both, and +my wallet too, and if you find them all and get them to me safely you +shall be bridesmaid and groomsman and best man and usher and maid of +honor at a wedding, in less than an hour! Off with you! Drive straight +and use the whip on Dolly!”</p> + +<p>When he reentered the kitchen, flushed with joy and excitement, Rose put +the various good things on the table and he almost tremblingly took his +seat, fearing that contact with the solid wood might wake him from this +entrancing vision.</p> + +<p>“I’d like to put you in your chair like a queen and wait on you,” he +said with a soft<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_177' id='Page_177'>[Pg 177]</a></span> boyish stammer; “but I am too dazed with happiness to +be of any use.”</p> + +<p>“It’s my turn to wait upon you, and I—Oh! how I love to have you +dazed,” Rose answered. “I’ll be at the table presently myself; but we +have been housekeeping only three minutes, and we have nothing but the +tin coffee-pot this morning, so I’ll pour the coffee from the stove.”</p> + +<p>She filled a cup with housewifely care and brought it to Stephen’s side. +As she set it down and was turning, she caught his look,—a look so full +of longing that no loving woman, however busy, could have resisted it; +then she stooped and kissed him fondly, fervently.</p> + +<p>Stephen put his arm about her, and, drawing her down to his knee, rested +his head against her soft shoulder with a sigh of comfort, like that of +a tired child. He had waited for it ten years, and at last the +dream-room had come true.</p> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Rose O' the River, by Kate Douglas Wiggin + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ROSE O' THE RIVER *** + +***** This file should be named 1033-h.htm or 1033-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/1/0/3/1033/ + +Produced by Shanti Day and Roger Frank + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Rose O' the River + +Author: Kate Douglas Wiggin + +Release Date: July 16, 2006 [EBook #1033] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ROSE O' THE RIVER *** + + + + +Produced by Shanti Day and Roger Frank + + + + + +[Illustration: ROSE O' THE RIVER] + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + +ROSE O' THE RIVER +BY +KATE DOUGLAS WIGGIN + +ILLUSTRATED BY +GEORGE WRIGHT + +NEW YORK +GROSSET & DUNLAP +PUBLISHERS + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + +COPYRIGHT 1905 BY THE CENTURY COMPANY +COPYRIGHT 1905 BY KATE DOUGLAS RIGGS +ALL RIGHTS RESERVED + +_Published September 1905_ + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + +TABLE OF CONTENTS + +The Pine And The Rose 1 +Old Kennebec 13 +The Edgewood "Drive" 28 +"Blasphemious Swearin'" 40 +The Game Of Jackstraws 50 +Hearts And Other Hearts 67 +The Little House 81 +The Garden Of Eden 93 +The Serpent 102 +The Turquoise Ring 114 +Gold And Pinchbeck 135 +A Country Chevalier 145 +Housebreaking 160 +The Dream Room 168 + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + +LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS + +Rose O' The River Frontispiece +"She's Up!" 6 +"He's A Turrible Smart Driver" 20 +He Had Certainly "Taken Chances" 32 +In A Twinkling He Was In The Water 64 +"Rose, I'll Take You Safely" 76 +Hiding Her Face As He Flung It Down The River-Bank 116 +She Had Gone With Maude To Claude's Store 128 +"As Long As Stephen Waterman's Alive, Rose Wiley Can Have Him" 158 +"Don't Speak, Stephen, Till You Hear What I Have To Say" 174 + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + + + + +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 this 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 +dams 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 to-day, 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. + +[Illustration: "SHE'S UP!"] + +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. + +[Illustration: "HE'S A TURRIBLE SMART DRIVER"] + +"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 couldn'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-kags 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 women-folks; 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-flecked 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 wildqq 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. + +[Illustration: HE HAD CERTAINLY "TAKEN CHANCES"] + +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' dog-warpin' 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 pick-poles, straight, heavy levers +without any "dog," and there were modern pick-poles 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 +pick-pole, 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 York 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 river-bank, 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 unnoticed, 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. + +[Illustration: IN A TWINKLING HE WAS IN THE WATER] + +The other Crambrys, not realizing the danger, laughed, audibly, but +there was no jeering from the bridge. + +Stephen 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. + +[Illustration: "ROSE, I'LL TAKE YOU SAFELY"] + +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 he v 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, rosy-cheeked 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 murmuring--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-forgotten sight. It +is needless to say that the Crambry family was on hand, for whatever +instincts they may have lacked, the instinct for being on the spot when +anything was happening, was present in them to the most remarkable +extent. The town was supporting them in modest winter quarters somewhat +nearer than Killick to the centre of civilization, and the first alarm +brought them promptly to the scene, Mrs. Crambry remarking at intervals: +"If I'd known there'd be so many out I'd ought to have worn my bunnit; +but I ain't got no bunnit, an' if I had they say I ain't got no head to +wear it on!" + +By the time the jam neared the falls it had grown with its +accumulations, until it was made up of tier after tier of huge ice +cakes, piled side by side and one upon another, with heaps of trees and +branches and drifting lumber holding them in place. Some of the blocks +stood erect and towered like icebergs, and these, glittering in the +lights of the twinkling lanterns, pushed solemnly forward, cracking, +crushing, and cutting everything in their way. When the great mass +neared the planing mill on the east shore the girls covered their eyes, +expecting to hear the crash of the falling building; but, impelled by +the force of some mysterious current, it shook itself ponderously, and +then, with one magnificent movement, slid up the river bank, tier +following tier in grand confusion. This left a water way for the main +drift; the ice broke in every direction, and down, down, down, from +Bonnie Eagle and Moderation swept the harvest of the winter freezing. It +came thundering over the dam, bringing boats, farming implements, posts, +supports, and every sort of floating lumber with it; and cutting under +the flour mill, tipped it cleverly over on its side and went crashing on +its way down river. At Edgewood it pushed colossal blocks of ice up the +banks into the roadway, piling them end upon end ten feet in air. Then, +tearing and rumbling and booming through the narrows, it covered the +intervale at Pleasant Point and made a huge ice bridge below Union +Falls, a bridge so solid that it stood there for days, a sight for all +the neighboring villages. + +This exciting event would have forever set apart this winter from all +others in Stephen's memory, even had it not been also the winter when he +was building a house for his future wife. But afterwards, in looking +back on the wild night of the ice freshet, Stephen remembered that +Rose's manner was strained and cold and evasive, and that when he had +seen her talking with Claude Merrill, it had seemed to him that that +whippersnapper had looked at her as no honorable man in Edgewood ever +looked at an engaged girl. He recalled his throb of gratitude that +Claude lived at a safe distance, and his subsequent pang of remorse at +doubting, for an instant, Rose's fidelity. + +So at length April came, the Saco was still high, turbid, and angry, and +the boys were waiting at Limington Falls for the "Ossipee drive" to +begin. Stephen joined them there, for he was restless, and the river +called him, as it did every spring. Each stubborn log that he +encountered gave him new courage and power of overcoming. The rush of +the water, the noise and roar and dash, the exposure and danger, all +made the blood run in his veins like new wine. When he came back to the +farm, all the cobwebs had been blown from his brain, and his first +interview with Rose was so intoxicating that he went immediately to +Portland, and bought, in a kind of secret penitence for his former +fears, a pale pink-flowered wall-paper for the bedroom in the new home. +It had once been voted down by the entire advisory committee. Mrs. Wiley +said pink was foolish and was always sure to fade; and the border, being +a mass of solid roses, was five cents a yard, virtually a prohibitive +price. Mr. Wiley said he "should hate to hev a spell of sickness an' lay +abed in a room where there was things growin' all over the place." He +thought "rough-plastered walls, where you could lay an' count the spots +where the roof leaked, was the most entertainin' in sickness." Rose had +longed for the lovely pattern, but had sided dutifully with the prudent +majority, so that it was with a feeling of unauthorized and illegitimate +joy that Stephen papered the room at night, a few strips at a time. + +On the third evening, when he had removed all signs of his work, he +lighted two kerosene lamps and two candles, finding the effect, under +this illumination, almost too brilliant and beautiful for belief. Rose +should never see it now, he determined, until the furniture was in +place. They had already chosen the kitchen and bedroom things, though +they would not be needed for some months; but the rest was to wait until +summer, when there would be the hay-money to spend. + +Stephen did not go back to the River Farm till one o'clock that night; +the pink bedroom held him in fetters too powerful to break. It looked +like the garden of Eden, he thought. To be sure, it was only fifteen +feet square; Eden might have been a little larger, possibly, but +otherwise the pink bedroom had every advantage. The pattern of roses +growing on a trellis was brighter than any flower-bed in June; and the +border--well, if the border had been five dollars a foot Stephen would +not have grudged the money when he saw the twenty running yards of rosy +bloom rioting under the white ceiling. + +Before he blew out the last light he raised it high above his head and +took one fond, final look. "It's the only place I ever saw," he thought, +"that is pretty enough for her. She will look just as if she was growing +here with all the other flowers, and I shall always think of it as the +garden of Eden. I wonder, if I got the license and the ring and took her +by surprise, whether she'd be married in June instead of August? I +could be all ready if I could only persuade her." + +At this moment Stephen touched the summit of happiness; and it is a +curious coincidence that as he was dreaming in his garden of Eden, the +serpent, having just arrived at Edgewood, was sleeping peacefully at the +house of Mrs. Brooks. + +It was the serpent's fourth visit that season, and he explained to +inquiring friends that his former employer had sold the business, and +that the new management, while reorganizing, had determined to enlarge +the premises, the three clerks who had been retained having two weeks' +vacation with half pay. + +It is extraordinary how frequently "wise serpents" are retained by the +management on half, or even full, salary, while the services of the +"harmless doves" are dispensed with, and they are set free to flutter +where they will. + + + + +THE SERPENT + + +Rose Wiley had the brightest eyes in Edgewood. It was impossible to look +at her without realizing that her physical sight was perfect. What +mysterious species of blindness is it that descends, now and then, upon +human creatures, and renders them incapable of judgment or +discrimination? + +Claude Merrill was a glove salesman in a Boston fancy-goods store. The +calling itself is undoubtedly respectable, and it is quite conceivable +that a man can sell gloves and still be a man; but Claude Merrill was a +manikin. He inhabited a very narrow space behind a very short counter, +but to him it seemed the earth and the fullness thereof. + +When, irreproachably neat and even exquisite in dress, he gave a +Napoleonic glance at his array of glove-boxes to see if the female +assistant had put them in proper order for the day; when, with that +wonderful eye for detail that had wafted him to his present height of +power, he pounced upon the powder-sprinklers and found them, as he +expected, empty; when, with masterly judgment, he had made up and +ticketed a basket of misfits and odd sizes to attract the eyes of women +who were their human counterparts, he felt himself bursting with the +pride and pomp of circumstance. His cambric handkerchief adjusted in his +coat with the monogram corner well displayed, a last touch to the +carefully trained lock on his forehead, and he was ready for his +customers. + +"Six, did you say, miss? I should have thought five and three +quarters--Attend to that gentleman, Miss Dix, please; I am very busy. + +"Six-and-a-half gray suede? Here they are, an exquisite shade. Shall I +try them on? The right hand, if you will. Perhaps you'd better remove +your elegant ring; I shouldn't like to have anything catch in the +setting." + +"Miss Dix! Six-and-a-half black glace--upper shelf, third box--for this +lady. She's in a hurry. We shall see you often after this, I hope, +madam." + +"No; we don't keep silk or lisle gloves. We have no call for them; our +customers prefer kid." + +Oh, but he was in his element, was Claude Merrill; though the glamour +that surrounded him in the minds of the Edgewood girls did not emanate +wholly from his finicky little person: something of it was the glamour +that belonged to Boston,--remote, fashionable, gay, rich, almost +inaccessible Boston, which none could see without the expenditure of +five or six dollars in railway fare, with the added extravagance of a +night in a hotel, if one would explore it thoroughly and come home +possessed of all its illimitable treasures of wisdom and experience. + +When Claude came to Edgewood for a Sunday, or to spend a vacation with +his aunt, he brought with him something of the magic of a metropolis. +Suddenly, to Rose's eye, Stephen looked larger and clumsier, his shoes +were not the proper sort, his clothes were ordinary, his neckties were +years behind the fashion. Stephen's dancing, compared with Claude's, was +as the deliberate motion of an ox to the hopping of a neat little robin. +When Claude took a girl's hand in the "grand right-and-left," it was as +if he were about to try on a delicate glove; the manner in which he +"held his lady" in the polka or schottische made her seem a queen. Mite +Shapley was so affected by it that when Rufus attempted to encircle her +for the mazurka she exclaimed, "Don't act as if you were spearing logs, +Rufus!" + +Of the two men, Stephen had more to say, but Claude said more. He was +thought brilliant in conversation; but what wonder, when one considered +his advantages and his dazzling experiences! He had customers who were +worth their thousands; ladies whose fingers never touched dish-water; +ladies who wouldn't buy a glove of anybody else if they went bare-handed +to the grave. He lived with his sister Maude Arthurlena in a house where +there were twenty-two other boarders who could be seated at meals all at +the same time, so immense was the dining-room. He ate his dinner at a +restaurant daily, and expended twenty-five cents for it without +blenching. He went to the theatre once a week, and was often accompanied +by "lady friends" who were "elegant dressers." + +In a moment of wrath Stephen had called him a "counter-jumper," but it +was a libel. So short and rough a means of exit from his place of power +was wholly beneath Claude's dignity. It was with a "Pardon me, Miss +Dix," that, the noon hour having arrived, he squeezed by that slave and +victim, and raising the hinged board that separated his kingdom from +that of the ribbon department, passed out of the store, hat in hand, +serene in the consciousness that though other clerks might nibble +luncheon from a brown paper bag, he would speedily be indulging in an +expensive repast; and Miss Dix knew it, and it was a part of his almost +invincible attraction for her. + +It seemed flying in the face of Providence to decline the attentions of +such a gorgeous butterfly of fashion simply because one was engaged to +marry another man at some distant day. + +All Edgewood femininity united in saying that there never was such a +perfect gentleman as Claude Merrill; and during the time when his +popularity was at its height Rose lost sight of the fact that Stephen +could have furnished the stuff for a dozen Claudes and have had enough +left for an ordinary man besides. + +April gave place to May, and a veil hung between the lovers,--an +intangible, gossamer-like thing, not to be seen with the naked eye, but, +oh! so plainly to be felt. Rose hid herself thankfully behind it, while +Stephen had not courage to lift a corner. She had twice been seen +driving with Claude Merrill--that Stephen knew; but she had explained +that there were errands to be done, that her grandfather had taken the +horse, and that Mr. Merrill's escort had been both opportune and +convenient for these practical reasons. Claude was everywhere present, +the centre of attraction, the observed of all observers. He was +irresistible, contagious, almost epidemic. Rose was now gay, now silent; +now affectionate, now distant, now coquettish; in fine, everything that +was capricious, mysterious, agitating, incomprehensible. + +One morning Alcestis Crambry went to the post-office for Stephen and +brought him back the newspapers and letters. He had hung about the River +Farm so much that Stephen finally gave him bed and food in exchange for +numberless small errands. Rufus was temporarily confined in a dark room +with some strange pain and trouble in his eyes, and Alcestis proved of +use in many ways. He had always been Rose's slave, and had often brought +messages and notes from the Brier Neighborhood, so that when Stephen saw +a folded note among the papers his heart gave a throb of anticipation. + +The note was brief, and when he had glanced through it he said: "This is +not mine, Alcestis; it belongs to Miss Rose. Go straight back and give +it to her as you were told; and another time keep your wits about you, +or I'll send you back to Killick." + +Alcestis Crambry's ideas on all subjects were extremely vague. Claude +Merrill had given him a letter for Rose, but his notion was that +anything that belonged to her belonged to Stephen, and the Waterman +place was much nearer than the Wileys', particularly at dinner-time! + +When the boy had slouched away, Stephen sat under the apple tree, now a +mass of roseate bloom, and buried his face in his hands. + +It was not precisely a love-letter that he had read, nevertheless it +blackened the light of the sun for him. Claude asked Rose to meet him +anywhere on the road to the station and to take a little walk, as he was +leaving that afternoon and could not bear to say good-by to her in the +presence of her grandmother. "Under the circumstances," he wrote, deeply +underlining the words, "I cannot remain a moment longer in Edgewood, +where I have been so happy and so miserable!" He did not refer to the +fact that the time limit on his return-ticket expired that day, for his +dramatic instinct told him that such sordid matters have no place in +heroics. + +Stephen sat motionless under the tree for an hour, deciding on some plan +of action. + +He had work at the little house, but he did not dare go there lest he +should see the face of dead Love looking from the windows of the pink +bedroom; dead Love, cold, sad, merciless. His cheeks burned as he +thought of the marriage license and the gold ring hidden away upstairs +in the drawer of his shaving stand. What a romantic fool he had been, to +think he could hasten the glad day by a single moment! What a piece of +boyish folly it had been, and how it shamed him in his own eyes! + +When train time drew near he took his boat and paddled down stream. If +for the Finland lover's reindeer there was but one path in all the +world, and that the one that led to Her, so it was for Stephen's canoe, +which, had it been set free on the river by day or by night, might have +floated straight to Rose. + +He landed at the usual place, a bit of sandy shore near the Wiley house, +and walked drearily up the bank through the woods. Under the shade of +the pines the white stars of the hepatica glistened and the pale +anemones were coming into bloom. Partridge-berries glowed red under +their glossy leaves, and clumps of violets sweetened the air. Squirrels +chattered, woodpeckers tapped, thrushes sang; but Stephen was blind and +deaf to all the sweet harbingers of spring. + +Just then he heard voices, realizing with a throb of delight that, at +any rate, Rose had not left home to meet Claude, as he had asked her to +do. Looking through the branches, he saw the two standing together, Mrs. +Brooks's horse; with the offensive trunk in the back of the wagon, being +hitched to a tree near by. There was nothing in the tableau to stir +Stephen to fury, but he read between the lines and suffered as he +read--suffered and determined to sacrifice himself if he must, so that +Rose could have what she wanted, this miserable apology for a man. He +had never been the husband for Rose; she must take her place in a larger +community, worthy of her beauty and charm. + +Claude was talking and gesticulating ardently. Rose's head was bent and +the tears were rolling down her cheeks. Suddenly Claude raised his hat, +and with a passionate gesture of renunciation walked swiftly to the +wagon, and looking back once, drove off with the utmost speed of which +the Brooks's horse was capable,--Rose waving him a farewell with one +hand and wiping her eyes with the other. + + + + +THE TURQUOISE RING + + +Stephen stood absolutely still in front of the opening in the trees, and +as Rose turned she met him face to face. She had never dreamed his eyes +could be so stern, his mouth so hard, and she gave a sob like a child. + +"You seem to be in trouble," Stephen said in a voice so cold she thought +it could not be his. + +"I am not in trouble, exactly," Rose stammered, concealing her +discomfiture as well as possible. "I am a little unhappy because I have +made some one else unhappy; and now that you know it, you will be +unhappy too, and angry besides, I suppose, though you've seen everything +there was to see." + +"There is no occasion for sorrow," Stephen said. "I didn't mean to break +in on any interview; I came over to give you back your freedom. If you +ever cared enough for me to marry me, the time has gone by. I am willing +to own that I over-persuaded you, but I am not the man to take a girl +against her inclinations, so we will say good-by and end the thing here +and now. I can only wish"--here his smothered rage at fate almost choked +him--"that, when you were selecting another husband, you had chosen a +whole man!" + +Rose quivered with the scorn of his tone. "Size isn't everything!" she +blazed. + +"Not in bodies, perhaps; but it counts for something in hearts and +brains, and it is convenient to have a sense of honor that's at least as +big as a grain of mustard-seed." + +"Claude Merrill is not dishonorable," Rose exclaimed impetuously; "or at +least he isn't as bad as you think: he has never asked me to marry him." + +"Then he probably was not quite ready to speak, or perhaps you were not +quite ready to hear," retorted Stephen, bitterly; "but don't let us have +words,--there'll be enough to regret without adding those. I have seen, +ever since New Year's, that you were not really happy or contented; only +I wouldn't allow it to myself: I kept hoping against hope that I was +mistaken. There have been times when I would have married you, willing +or unwilling, but I didn't love you so well then; and now that there's +another man in the case, it's different, and I'm strong enough to do the +right thing. Follow your heart and be happy; in a year or two I shall be +glad I had the grit to tell you so. Good-by, Rose!" + +Rose, pale with amazement, summoned all her pride, and drawing the +turquoise engagement ring from her finger, handed it silently to +Stephen, hiding her face as he flung it vehemently down the river-bank. +His dull eyes followed it and half uncomprehendingly saw it settle and +glisten in a nest of brown pine-needles. Then he put out his hand for a +last clasp and strode away without a word. + +[Illustration: HIDING HER FACE AS HE FLUNG IT DOWN THE RIVER-BANK] + +Presently Rose heard first the scrape of his boat on the sand, then the +soft sound of his paddles against the water, then nothing but the +squirrels and the woodpeckers and the thrushes, then not even +these,--nothing but the beating of her own heart. + +She sat down heavily, feeling as if she were wide awake for the first +time in many weeks. How had things come to this pass with her? + +Claude Merrill had flattered her vanity and given her some moments of +restlessness and dissatisfaction with her lot; but he had not until +to-day really touched her heart or tempted her, even momentarily, from +her allegiance to Stephen. His eyes had always looked unspeakable +things; his voice had seemed to breathe feelings that he had never dared +put in words; but to-day he had really stirred her, for although he had +still been vague, it was easy to see that his love for her had passed +all bounds of discretion. She remembered his impassioned farewells, his +despair, his doubt as to whether he could forget her by plunging into +the vortex of business, or whether he had better end it all in the +river, as so many other broken-hearted fellows had done. She had been +touched by his misery, even against her better judgment; and she had +intended to confess it all to Stephen sometime, telling him that she +should never again accept attentions from a stranger, lest a tragedy +like this should happen twice in a lifetime. + +She had imagined that Stephen would be his large-minded, great-hearted, +magnanimous self, and beg her to forget this fascinating will-o'the-wisp +by resting in his deeper, serener love. She had meant to be contrite and +faithful, praying nightly that poor Claude might live down his present +anguish, of which she had been the innocent cause. + +Instead, what had happened? She had been put altogether in the wrong. +Stephen had almost cast her off, and that, too, without argument. He had +given her her liberty before she had asked for it, taking it for +granted, without question, that she desired to be rid of him. Instead of +comforting her in her remorse, or sympathizing with her for so nobly +refusing to shine in Claude's larger world of Boston, Stephen had +assumed that she was disloyal in every particular. + +And pray how was she to cope with such a disagreeable and complicated +situation? + +It would not be long before the gossips rolled under their tongues the +delicious morsel of a broken engagement, and sooner or later she must +brave the displeasure of her grandmother. + +And the little house--that was worse than anything. Her tears flowed +faster as she thought of Stephen's joy in it, of his faithful labor, of +the savings he had invested in it. She hated and despised her self when +she thought of the house, and for the first time in her life she +realized the limitations of her nature, the poverty of her ideals. + +What should she do? She had lost Stephen and ruined his life. Now, in +order that she need not blight a second career, must she contrive to +return Claude's love! To be sure, she thought, it seemed indecent to +marry any other man than Stephen, when they had built a house together, +and chosen wall-papers, and a kitchen stove, and dining-room chairs; but +was it not the only way to evade the difficulties? + +Suppose that Stephen, in a fit of pique, should ask somebody else to +share the new cottage? + +As this dreadful possibility came into view, Rose's sobs actually +frightened the birds and the squirrels. She paced back and forth under +the trees, wondering how she could have been engaged to a man for eight +months and know so little about him as she seemed to know about Stephen +Waterman to-day. Who would have believed he could be so autocratic, so +severe, so unapproachable! Who could have foreseen that she, Rose Wiley, +would ever be given up to another man,--handed over as coolly as if she +had been a bale of cotton? She wanted to return Claude Merrill's love +because it was the only way out of the tangle; but at the moment she +almost hated him for making so much trouble, for hurting Stephen, for +abasing her in her own eyes, and, above all, for giving her rustic lover +the chance of impersonating an injured emperor. + +It did not simplify the situation to have Mite Shapley come in during +the evening and run upstairs, uninvited, to sit on the toot of her bed +and chatter. + +Rose had closed her blinds and lay in the dark, pleading a headache. + +Mite was in high feather. She had met Claude Merrill going to the +station that afternoon. He was much too early for the train, which the +station agent reported to be behind time, so he had asked her to take a +drive. She didn't know how it happened, for he looked at his watch every +now and then; but, anyway, they got to laughing and "carrying on," and +when they came back to the station the train had gone. Wasn't that the +greatest joke of the season? What did Rose suppose they did next? + +Rose didn't know and didn't care; her head ached too badly. + +Well, they had driven to Wareham, and Claude had hired a livery team +there, and had been taken into Portland with his trunk, and she had +brought Mrs. Brooks's horse back to Edgewood. Wasn't that ridiculous? +And hadn't she cut out Rose where she least expected? + +Rose was distinctly apathetic, and Mite Shapley departed after a very +brief call, leaving behind her an entirely new train of thought. + +If Claude Merrill were so love-blighted that he could only by the +greatest self-control keep from flinging himself into the river, how +could he conceal his sufferings so completely from Mite Shapley,--little +shallow-pated, scheming coquette? + +"So that pretty Merrill feller has gone, has he, mother?" inquired Old +Kennebec that night, as he took off his wet shoes and warmed his feet at +the kitchen oven. "Well, it ain't a mite too soon. I allers distrust +that pink-an'-white, rosy-posy kind of a man. One of the most turrible +things that ever happened in Gard'ner was brought about by jest sech a +feller. Mothers hedn't hardly ought to name their boy babies Claude +without they expect 'em to play the dickens with the girls. I don' know +nothin' 'bout the fust Claude, there ain't none of 'em in the Bible, +air they, but whoever he was, I bate ye he hed a deceivin' tongue. If it +hedn't be'n for me, that Claude in Gard'ner would 'a' run away with my +brother's fust wife; an' I'll tell ye jest how I contrived to put a +spoke in his wheel." + +But Mrs. Wiley, being already somewhat familiar with the circumstances, +had taken her candle and retired to her virtuous couch. + + + + +ROSE SEES THE WORLD + + +Was this the world, after all? Rose asked herself; and, if so, what was +amiss with it, and where was the charm, the bewilderment, the +intoxication, the glamour? + +She had been glad to come to Boston, for the last two weeks in Edgewood +had proved intolerable. She had always been a favorite heretofore, from +the days when the boys fought for the privilege of dragging her sled up +the hills, and filling her tiny mitten with peppermints, down to the +year when she came home from the Wareham Female Seminary, an +acknowledged belle and beauty. Suddenly she had felt her popularity +dwindling. There was no real change in the demeanor of her +acquaintances, but there was a certain subtle difference of atmosphere. +Everybody sympathized tacitly with Stephen, and she did not wonder, for +there were times when she secretly took his part against herself. Only a +few candid friends had referred to the rupture openly in conversation, +but these had been blunt in their disapproval. + +It seemed part of her ill fortune that just at this time Rufus should be +threatened with partial blindness, and that Stephen's heart, already +sore, should be torn with new anxieties. She could hardly bear to see +the doctor's carriage drive by day after day, and hear night after night +that Rufus was unresigned, melancholy, half mad; while Stephen, as the +doctor said, was brother, mother, and father in one, as gentle as a +woman, as firm as Gibraltar. + +These foes to her peace of mind all came from within; but without was +the hourly reproach of her grandmother, whose scorching tongue touched +every sensitive spot in the girl's nature and burned it like fire. + +Finally a way of escape opened. Mrs. Wealthy Brooks, who had always been +rheumatic, grew suddenly worse. She had heard of a "magnetic" physician +in Boston, also of one who used electricity with wonderful effect, and +she announced her intention of taking both treatments impartially and +alternately. The neighbors were quite willing that Wealthy Ann Brooks +should spend the deceased Ezra's money in any way she pleased,--she had +earned it, goodness knows, by living with him for twenty-five +years,--but before the day for her departure arrived her right arm and +knee became so much more painful that it was impossible for her to +travel alone. + +At this juncture Rose was called upon to act as nurse and companion in a +friendly way. She seized the opportunity hungrily as a way out of her +present trouble; but, knowing what Mrs. Brooks's temper was in time of +health, she could see clearly what it was likely to prove when pain and +anguish wrung the brow. + +Rose had been in Boston now for some weeks, and she was sitting in the +Joy Street boarding-house,--Joy Street, forsooth! It was nearly bedtime, +and she was looking out upon a huddle of roofs and back yards, upon a +landscape filled with clothes-lines, ash-barrels, and ill-fed cats. +There were no sleek country tabbies, with the memory in their eyes of +tasted cream, nothing but city-born, city-bred, thin, despairing cats of +the pavement, cats no more forlorn than Rose herself. + +[Illustration: SHE HAD GONE WITH MAUDE TO CLAUDE'S STORE] + +She had "seen Boston," for she had accompanied Mrs. Brooks in the +horse-cars daily to the two different temples of healing where that lady +worshipped and offered sacrifices. She had also gone with Maude +Arthurlena to Claude Merrill's store to buy pair of gloves, and had +overheard Miss Dix (the fashionable "lady-assistant" before mentioned) +say to Miss Brackett of the ribbon department, that she thought Mr. +Merrill must have worn his blinders that time he stayed so long in +Edgewood. This bit of polished irony was unintelligible to Rose at +first, but she mastered it after an hour's reflection. She wasn't +looking her best that day, she knew; the cotton dresses that seemed so +pretty at home were common and countrified here, and her best black +cashmere looked cheap and shapeless beside Miss Dix's brilliantine. Miss +Dix's figure was her strong point, and her dressmaker was particularly +skillful in the arts of suggestion, concealment, and revelation. Beauty +has its chosen backgrounds. Rose in white dimity, standing knee deep in +her blossoming brier bushes, the river running at her feet, dark pine +trees behind her graceful head, sounded depths and touched heights of +harmony forever beyond the reach of the modish Miss Dix, but she was +out of her element and suffered accordingly. + +Rose had gone to walk with Claude one evening when she first arrived. He +had shown her the State House and the Park Street Church, and sat with +her on one of the benches in the Common until nearly ten. She knew that +Mrs. Brooks had told her nephew of the broken engagement, but he made no +reference to the matter, save to congratulate her that she was rid of a +man who was so clumsy, so dull and behind the times, as Stephen +Waterman, saying that he had always marveled she could engage herself to +anybody who could insult her by offering her a turquoise ring. + +Claude was very interesting that evening, Rose thought, but rather +gloomy and unlike his former self. He referred to his grave +responsibilities, to the frail health of Maude Arthurlena, and to the +vicissitudes of business. He vaguely intimated that his daily life in +the store was not so pleasant as it had been formerly; that there were +"those" (he would speak no more plainly) who embarrassed him with +undesired attentions, "those" who, without the smallest shadow of right, +vexed him with petty jealousies. + +Rose dared not ask questions on so delicate a topic, but she remembered +in a flash Miss Dix's heavy eyebrows, snapping eyes, and high color. +Claude seemed very happy that Rose had come to Boston, though he was +surprised, knowing what a trial his aunt must be, now that she was so +helpless. It was unfortunate, also, that Rose could not go on excursions +without leaving his aunt alone, or he should have been glad to offer his +escort. He pressed her hand when he left her at her door, telling her +she could never realize what a comfort her friendship was to him; could +never imagine how thankful he was that she had courageously freed +herself from ties that in time would have made her wretched. His heart +was full, he said, of feelings he dared not utter; but in the near +future, when certain clouds had rolled by, he would unlock its +treasures, and then--but no more to-night: he could not trust himself. + +Rose felt as if she were assuming one of the characters in a mysterious +romance, such as unfolded itself only in books or in Boston; but, +thrilling as it was, it was nevertheless extremely unsatisfactory. + +Convinced that Claude Merrill was passionately in love with her, one of +her reasons for coming to Boston had been to fall more deeply in love +with him, and thus heal some, at least, of the wounds she had inflicted. +It may have been a foolish idea, but after three weeks it seemed still +worse,--a useless one; for after several interviews she felt herself +drifting farther and farther from Claude; and if he felt any burning +ambition to make her his own, he certainly concealed it with admirable +art. Given up, with the most offensive magnanimity, by Stephen, and not +greatly desired by Claude,--that seemed the present status of proud Rose +Wiley of the Brier Neighborhood. + +It was June, she remembered, as she leaned out of the open window; at +least it was June in Edgewood, and she supposed for convenience's sake +they called it June in Boston. Not that it mattered much what the poor +city prisoners called it. How beautiful the river would be at home, with +the trees along the banks in full leaf! How she hungered and thirsted +for the river,--to see it sparkle in the sunlight; to watch the +moonglade stretching from one bank to the other; to hear the soft lap of +the water on the shore, and the distant murmur of the falls at the +bridge! And the Brier Neighborhood would be at its loveliest, for the +wild roses were in blossom by now. And the little house! How sweet it +must look under the shade of the elms, with the Saco rippling at the +back! Was poor Rufus still lying in a darkened room, and was Stephen +nursing him,--disappointed Stephen,--dear, noble old Stephen? + + + + +GOLD AND PINCHBECK + + +Just then Mrs. Brooks groaned in the next room and called Rose, who went +in to minister to her real needs, or to condole with her fancied ones, +whichever course of action appeared to be the more agreeable at the +moment. + +Mrs. Brooks desired conversation, it seemed, or at least she desired an +audience for a monologue, for she recognized no antiphonal obligations +on the part of her listeners. The doctors were not doing her a speck of +good, and she was just squandering money in a miserable boarding-house, +when she might be enjoying poor health in her own home; and she didn't +believe her hens were receiving proper care, and she had forgotten to +pull down the shades in the spare room, and the sun would fade the +carpet out all white before she got back, and she didn't believe Dr. +Smith's magnetism was any more use than a cat's foot, nor Dr. Robinson's +electricity any better than a bumblebee's buzz, and she had a great mind +to go home and try Dr. Lord from Bonnie Eagle; and there was a letter +for Rose on the bureau, which had come before supper, but the shiftless, +lazy, worthless landlady had forgotten to send it up till just now. + +The letter was from Mite Shapley, but Rose could read only half of it to +Mrs. Brooks,--little beside the news that the Waterman barn, the finest +barn in the whole township, had been struck by lightning and burned to +the ground. Stephen was away at the time, having taken Rufus to +Portland, where an operation on his eyes would shortly be performed at +the hospital, and one of the neighbors was sleeping at the River Farm +and taking care of the cattle; still the house might not have been +saved but for one of Alcestis Crambry's sudden bursts of common sense, +which occurred now quite regularly. He succeeded not only in getting the +horses out of the stalls, but gave the alarm so promptly that the whole +neighborhood was soon on the scene of action. Stephen was the only man, +Mite reminded Rose, who ever had any patience with, or took any pains to +teach, Alcestis, but he never could have expected to be rewarded in this +practical way. The barn was only partly insured; and when she had met +Stephen at the station next day, and condoled with him on his loss, he +had said: "Oh, well, Mite, a little more or less doesn't make much +difference just now." + +"The rest wouldn't interest you, Mrs. Brooks," said Rose, precipitately +preparing to leave the room. + +"Something about Claude, I suppose," ventured that astute lady. "I think +Mite kind of fancied him. I don't believe he ever gave her any real +encouragement; but he'd make love to a pump, Claude Merrill would; and +so would his father before him. How my sister Abby made out to land him +we never knew, for they said he'd proposed to every woman in the town of +Bingham, not excepting the wooden Indian girl in front of the cigar +store, and not one of 'em but our Abby ever got a chance to name the +day. Abby was as set as the everlastin' hills, and if she'd made up her +mind to have a man he couldn't wriggle away from her nohow in the world. +It beats all how girls do run after these slick-haired, sweet-tongued, +Miss Nancy kind o' fellers, that ain't but little good as beaux an' +worth less than nothing as husbands." + +Rose scarcely noticed what Mrs. Brooks said, she was too anxious to read +the rest of Mite Shapley's letter in the quiet of her own room. + + "Stephen looks thin and pale [so it ran on], but he does not allow + anybody to sympathize with him. I think you ought to know something + that I haven't told you before for fear of hurting your feelings; + but if I were in your place I'd like to hear everything, and then + you'll know how to act when you come home. Just after you left, + Stephen plowed up all the land in front of your new house,--every + inch of it, all up and down the road, between the fence and the + front door-step,--and then he planted corn where you were going to + have your flower-beds. + + "He has closed all the blinds and hung a 'To Let' sign on the large + elm at the gate. Stephen never was spiteful in his life, but this + looks a little like spite. Perhaps he only wanted to save his + self-respect and let people know, that everything between you was + over forever. Perhaps he thought it would stop talk once and for + all. But you won't mind, you lucky girl, staying nearly three months + in Boston! [So Almira purled on in violet ink, with shaded letters.] + How I wish it had come my way, though I'm not good at rubbing + rheumatic patients, even when they are his aunt. Is he as devoted as + ever? And when will it be? How do you like the theatre? Mother + thinks you won't attend; but, by what he used to say, I am sure + church members in Boston always go to amusements. + + "Your loving friend, + "Almira Shapley. + + "P.S. They say Rufus's doctor's bills here, and the operation and + hospital expenses in Portland, will mount up to five hundred + dollars. Of course Stephen will be dreadfully hampered by the loss + of his barn, and maybe he wants to let your house that was to be, + because he really needs money. In that case the dooryard won't be + very attractive to tenants, with corn planted right up to the steps + and no path left! It's two feet tall now, and by August (just when + you were intending to move in) it will hide the front windows. Not + that you'll care, with a diamond on your engagement finger!" + +The letter was more than flesh and blood could stand, and Rose flung +herself on her bed to think and regret and repent, and, if possible, to +sob herself to sleep. + +She knew now that she had never admired and respected Stephen so much as +at the moment when, under the reproach of his eyes, she had given him +back his ring. When she left Edgewood and parted with him forever she +had really loved him better than when she had promised to marry him. + +Claude Merrill, on his native Boston heath, did not appear the romantic, +inspiring figure he had once been in her eyes. A week ago she distrusted +him; to-night she despised him. + +What had happened to Rose was the dilation of her vision. She saw +things under a wider sky and in a clearer light. Above all, her heart +was wrung with pity for Stephen--Stephen, with no comforting woman's +hand to help him in his sore trouble; Stephen, bearing his losses alone, +his burdens and anxieties alone, his nursing and daily work alone. Oh, +how she felt herself needed! Needed! that was the magic word that +unlocked her better nature. "Darkness is the time for making roots and +establishing plants, whether of the soil or of the soul," and all at +once Rose had become a woman: a little one, perhaps, but a whole +woman--and a bit of an angel, too, with healing in her wings. When and +how had this metamorphosis come about? Last summer the fragile +brier-rose had hung over the river and looked at its pretty reflection +in the placid surface of the water. Its few buds and blossoms were so +lovely, it sighed for nothing more. The changes in the plant had been +wrought secretly and silently. In some mysterious way, as common to soul +as to plant life, the roots had gathered in more nourishment from the +earth, they had stored up strength and force, and all at once there was +a marvelous fructifying of the plant, hardiness of stalk, new shoots +everywhere, vigorous leafage, and a shower of blossoms. + +But everything was awry: Boston was a failure; Claude was a weakling and +a flirt; her turquoise ring was lying on the river-bank; Stephen did not +love her any longer; her flower-beds were plowed up and planted in corn; +and the cottage that Stephen had built and she had furnished, that +beloved cottage, was to let. + +She was in Boston; but what did that amount to, after all? What was the +State House to a bleeding heart, or the Old South Church to a pride +wounded like hers? + +At last she fell asleep, but it was only by stopping her ears to the +noises of the city streets and making herself imagine the sound of the +river rippling under her bedroom windows at home. The back yards of +Boston faded, and in their place came the banks of the Saco, strewn with +pine needles, fragrant with wild flowers. Then there was the bit of +sunny beach, where Stephen moored his boat. She could hear the sound of +his paddle. Boston lovers came a-courting in the horse-cars, but hers +had floated down stream to her just at dusk in a birch-bark canoe, or +sometimes, in the moonlight, on a couple of logs rafted together. + +But it was all over now, and she could see only Stephen's stern face as +he flung the despised turquoise ring down the river bank. + + + + +A COUNTRY CHEVALIER + + +It was early in August when Mrs. Wealthy Brooks announced her speedy +return from Boston to Edgewood. + +"It's jest as well Rose is comin' back," said Mr. Wiley to his wife. "I +never favored her goin' to Boston, where that rosy-posy Claude feller is. +When he was down here he was kep' kind o' tied up in a boxstall, but +there he's caperin' loose round the pastur'." + +"I should think Rose would be ashamed to come back, after the way she's +carried on," remarked Mrs. Wiley, "but if she needed punishment I guess +she's got it bein' comp'ny-keeper to Wealthy Ann Brooks. Bein' a church +member in good an' reg'lar standin', I s'pose Wealthy Ann'll go to +heaven, but I can only say that it would be a sight pleasanter place for +a good many if she didn't." + +"Rose has be'n foolish an' flirty an' wrong-headed," allowed her +grandfather; "but it won't do no good to treat her like a hardened +criminile, same's you did afore she went away. She ain't hardly got her +wisdom teeth cut, in love affairs! She ain't broke the laws of the State +o' Maine, nor any o' the ten commandments; she ain't disgraced the +family, an' there's a chance for her to reform, seein' as how she ain't +twenty year old yet. I was turrible wild an' hot-headed myself afore you +ketched me an' tamed me down." + +"You ain't so tame now as I wish you was," Mrs. Wiley replied testily. + +"If you could smoke a clay pipe 't would calm your nerves, mother, an' +help you to git some philosophy inter you; you need a little philosophy +turrible bad." + +"I need patience consid'able more," was Mrs. Wiley's withering retort. + +"That's the way with folks," said Old Kennebec reflectively, as he went +on peacefully puffing. "If you try to indoose 'em to take an int'rest in +a bran'-new virtue, they won't look at it; but they'll run down a side +street an' buy half a yard more o' some turrible old shopworn trait o' +character that they've kep' in stock all their lives, an' that +everybody's sick to death of. There was a man in Gard'ner"-- + +But alas! the experiences of the Gardiner man, though told in the same +delightful fashion that had won Mrs. Wiley's heart many years before, +now fell upon the empty air. In these years of Old Kennebec's +"anecdotage," his pipe was his best listener and his truest confidant. + +Mr. Wiley's constant intercessions with his wife made Rose's home-coming +somewhat easier, and the sight of her own room and belongings soothed +her troubled spirit, but the days went on, and nothing happened to +change the situation. She had lost a lover, that was all, and there were +plenty more to choose from, or there always had been; but the only one +she wanted was the one who made no sign. She used to think that she +could twist Stephen around her little finger; that she had only to +beckon to him and he would follow her to the ends of the earth. Now fear +had entered her heart. She no longer felt sure, because she no longer +felt worthy, of him, and feeling both uncertainty and unworthiness, her +lips were sealed and she was rendered incapable of making any bid for +forgiveness. + +So the little world of Pleasant River went on, to all outward seeming, +as it had ever gone. On one side of the stream a girl's heart was +longing, and pining, and sickening, with hope deferred, and growing, +too, with such astonishing rapidity that the very angels marveled! And +on the other, a man's whole vision of life an duty was widening and +deepening under the fructifying influence of his sorrow. + +The corn waved high and green in front of the vacant riverside cottage, +but Stephen sent no word or message to Rose. He had seen her once, but +only from a distance. She seemed paler and thinner, he thought,--the +result; probably, of her metropolitan gayeties. He heard no rumor of any +engagement, and he wondered if it were possible that her love for Claude +Merrill had not, after all, been returned in kind. This seemed a wild +impossibility. His mind refused to entertain the supposition that any +man on earth could resist falling in love with Rose, or, having fallen +in, that he could ever contrive to climb out. So he worked on at his +farm harder than ever, and grew soberer and more careworn daily. Rufus +had never seemed so near and dear to him as in these weeks when he had +lived under the shadow of threatened blindness. The burning of the barn +and the strain upon their slender property brought the brothers +together shoulder to shoulder. + +"If you lose your girl, Steve," said the boy, "and I lose my eyesight, +and we both lose the barn, why, it'll be us two against the world, for a +spell!" + +The "To Let" sign on the little house was an arrant piece of hypocrisy. +Nothing but the direst extremity could have caused him to allow an alien +step on that sacred threshold. The plowing up of the flower-beds and +planting of the corn had served a double purpose. It showed the too +curious public the finality of his break with Rose and her absolute +freedom; it also prevented them from suspecting that he still entered +the place. His visits were not many, but he could not bear to let the +dust settle on the furniture that he and Rose had chosen together; and +whenever he locked the door and went back to the River Farm, he thought +of a verse in the Bible: "Therefore the Lord God sent him forth from +the Garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken." + +It was now Friday of the last week in August. The river was full of +logs, thousands upon thousands of them covering the surface of the water +from the bridge almost up to the Brier Neighborhood. + +The Edgewood drive was late, owing to a long drought and low water; but +it was to begin on the following Monday, and Lije Dennett and his under +boss were looking over the situation and planning the campaign. As they +leaned over the bridge-rail they saw Mr. Wiley driving down the river +road. When he caught sight of them he hitched the old white horse at the +corner and walked toward them, filling his pipe the while in his usual +leisurely manner. + +"We're not busy this forenoon," said Lije Dennett. "S'pose we stand +right here and let Old Kennebec have his say out for once. We've never +heard the end of one of his stories, an' he's be'n talkin' for twenty +years." + +"All right," rejoined his companion, with a broad grin at the idea. "I'm +willin', if you are; but who's goin' to tell our fam'lies the reason +we've deserted 'em! I bate yer we sha'n't budge till the crack o' doom. +The road commissioner'll come along once a year and mend the bridge +under our feet, but Old Kennebec'll talk straight on till the day o' +jedgment." + +Mr. Wiley had one of the most enjoyable mornings of his life, and felt +that after half a century of neglect his powers were at last appreciated +by his fellow-citizens. + +He proposed numerous strategic movements to be made upon the logs, +whereby they would move more swiftly than usual. He described several +successful drives on the Kennebec, when the logs had melted down the +river almost by magic, owing to his generalship; and he paid a tribute, +in passing, to the docility of the boss, who on that occasion had never +moved a single log without asking his advice. + +From this topic he proceeded genially to narrate the life-histories of +the boss, the under boss, and several Indians belonging to the +crew,--histories in which he himself played a gallant and conspicuous +part. The conversation then drifted naturally to the exploits of +river-drivers in general, and Mr. Wiley narrated the sorts of feats in +log-riding, pickpole-throwing, and the shooting of rapids that he had +done in his youth. These stories were such as had seldom been heard by +the ear of man; and, as they passed into circulation instantaneously, we +are probably enjoying some of them to this day. + +They were still being told when a Crambry child appeared on the bridge, +bearing a note for the old man. + +Upon reading it he moved off rapidly in the direction of the store, +ejaculating: + +"Bless my soul! I clean forgot that saleratus, and mother's settin' at +the kitchen table with the bowl in her lap, waitin' for it! Got so +int'rested in your list'nin' I never thought o' the time." + +The connubial discussion that followed this breach of discipline began +on the arrival of the saleratus, and lasted through supper; and Rose +went to bed almost immediately afterward for very dullness and apathy. +Her life stretched out before her in the most aimless and monotonous +fashion. She saw nothing but heartache in the future; and that she +richly deserved it made it none the easier to bear. + +Feeling feverish and sleepless, she slipped on her gray Shaker cloak and +stole quietly downstairs for a breath of air. Her grandfather and +grandmother were talking on the piazza, and good humor seemed to have +been restored. + +"I was over to the tavern to-night," she heard him say, as she sat down +at a little distance. "I was over to the tavern to-night, an' a feller +from Gorham got to talkin' an' braggin' 'bout what a stock o' goods they +kep' in the store over there. 'An',' says I, 'I bate ye dollars to +doughnuts that there hain't a darn thing ye can ask for at Bill Pike's +store at Pleasant River that he can't go down cellar, or up attic, or +out in the barn chamber an' git for ye.' Well, sir, he took me up, an' I +borrered the money of Joe Dennett, who held the stakes, an' we went +right over to Bill Pike's with all the boys follerin' on behind. An' the +Gorham man never let on what he was goin' to ask for till the hull crowd +of us got inside the store. Then says he, as p'lite as a basket o' +chips, 'Mr. Pike, I'd like to buy a pulpit if you can oblige me with +one.' + +"Bill scratched his head an' I held my breath. Then says he, 'Pears to +me I'd ought to hev a pulpit or two, if I can jest remember where I keep +'em. I don't never cal'late to be out o' pulpits, but I'm so plagued +for room I can't keep 'em in here with the groc'ries. Jim (that's his +new store boy), you jest take a lantern an' run out in the far corner o' +the shed, at the end o' the hickory woodpile, an' see how many pulpits +we've got in stock!' Well, Jim run out, an' when he come back he says, +'We've got two, Mr. Pike. Shall I bring one of 'em in?' + +"At that the boys all bust out laughin' an' hollerin' an' tauntin' the +Gorham man, an' he paid up with a good will, I tell ye!" + +"I don't approve of bettin'," said Mrs. Wiley grimly, "but I'll try to +sanctify the money by usin' it for a new wash-boiler." + +"The fact is," explained old Kennebec, somewhat confused, "that the boys +made me spend every cent of it then an' there." + +Rose heard her grandmother's caustic reply, and then paid no further +attention until her keen ear caught the sound of Stephen's name. It was +a part of her unhappiness that since her broken engagement no one would +ever allude to him, and she longed to hear him mentioned, so that +perchance she could get some inkling of his movements. + +[Illustration: "AS LONG AS STEPHEN WATERMAN'S ALIVE, ROSE WILEY CAN HAVE +HIM"] + +"I met Stephen to-night for the first time in a week," said Mr. Wiley. +"He kind o' keeps out o' my way lately. He's goin' to drive his span +into Portland tomorrow mornin' and bring Rufus home from the hospital +Sunday afternoon. The doctors think they've made a success of their job, +but Rufus has got to be bandaged up a spell longer. Stephen is goin' to +join the drive Monday mornin' at the bridge here, so I'll get the latest +news o' the boy. Land! I'll be turrible glad if he gets out with his +eyesight, if it's only for Steve's sake. He's a turrible good fellow, +Steve is! He said something to-night that made me set more store by him +than ever. I told you I hedn't heard an unkind word ag'in' Rose sence +she come home from Boston, an' no more I hev till this evenin: There +was two or three fellers talkin' in the post-office, an' they didn't +suspicion I was settin' on the steps outside the screen door. That Jim +Jenkins, that Rose so everlastin'ly snubbed at the tavern dance, spoke +up, an' says he: 'This time last year Rose Wiley could 'a' hed the +choice of any man on the river, an' now I bet ye she can't get nary +one.' + +"Steve was there, jest goin' out the door, with some bags o' coffee an' +sugar under his arm. + +"'I guess you're mistaken about that,' he says, speakin' up jest like +lightnin'; 'so long as Stephen Waterman's alive, Rose Wiley can have +him, for one; and that everybody's welcome to know.' + +"He spoke right out, loud an' plain, jest as if he was readin' the +Declaration of Independence. I expected the boys would everlastin'ly +poke fun at him, but they never said a word. I guess his eyes flashed, +for he come out the screen door, slammin' it after him, and stalked by +me as if he was too worked up to notice anything or anybody. I didn't +foiler him, for his long legs git over the ground too fast for me, but +thinks I, 'Mebbe I'll hev some use for my lemonade-set after all.'" + +"I hope to the land you will," responded Mrs. Wiley, "for I'm about sick +o' movin' it round when I sweep under my bed. And I shall be glad if +Rose an' Stephen do make it up, for Wealthy Ann Brooks's gossip is too +much for a Christian woman to stand." + + + + +HOUSEBREAKING + + +Where was the pale Rose, the faded Rose, that crept noiselessly down +from her room, wanting neither to speak nor to be spoken to? Nobody ever +knew. She vanished forever, and in her place a thing of sparkles and +dimples flashed up the stairway and closed the door softly. There was a +streak of moonshine lying across the bare floor, and a merry ghost, with +dressing-gown held prettily away from bare feet, danced a gay fandango +among the yellow moonbeams. There were breathless flights to the open +window, and kisses thrown in the direction of the River Farm. There were +impressive declamations at the looking-glass, where a radiant creature +pointed to her reflection and whispered, "Worthless little pig, he +loves you, after all!" + +Then, when quiet joy had taken the place of mad delight, there was a +swoop down upon the floor, an impetuous hiding of brimming eyes in the +white counterpane, and a dozen impassioned promises to herself and to +something higher than herself, to be a better girl. + +The mood lasted, and deepened, and still Rose did not move. Her heart +was on its knees before Stephen's faithful love, his chivalry, his +strength. Her troubled spirit, like a frail boat tossed about in the +rapids, seemed entering a quiet harbor, where there were protecting +shores and a still, still evening star. Her sails were all torn and +drooping, but the harbor was in sight, and the poor little +weather-beaten craft could rest in peace. + +A period of grave reflection now ensued,--under the bedclothes, where +one could think better. Suddenly an inspiration seized her,--an +inspiration so original, so delicious, and above all so humble and +praiseworthy, that it brought her head from her pillow, and she sat bolt +upright, clapping her hands like a child. + +"The very thing!" she whispered to herself gleefully. "It will take +courage, but I'm sure of my ground after what he said before them all, +and I'll do it. Grandma in Biddeford buying church carpets, Stephen in +Portland--was ever such a chance?" + +The same glowing Rose came downstairs, two steps at a time, next +morning, bade her grandmother good-by with suspicious pleasure, and sent +her grandfather away on an errand which, with attendant conversation, +would consume half the day. Then bundles after bundles and baskets after +baskets were packed into the wagon,--behind the seat, beneath the seat, +and finally under the lap-robe. She gave a dramatic flourish to the +whip, drove across the bridge, went through Pleasant River village, and +up the leafy road to the little house, stared the "To Let" sign +scornfully in the eye, alighted, and ran like a deer through the aisles +of waving corn, past the kitchen windows, to the back door. + +"If he has kept the big key in the old place under the stone, where we +both used to find it, then he hasn't forgotten me--or anything," thought +Rose. + +The key was there, and Rose lifted it with a sob of gratitude. It was +but five minutes' work to carry all the bundles from the wagon to the +back steps, and another five to lead old Tom across the road into the +woods and tie him to a tree quite out of the sight of any passer-by. + +When, after running back, she turned the key in the lock, her heart gave +a leap almost of terror, and she started at the sound of her own +footfall. Through the open door the sunlight streamed into the dark +room. She flew to tables and chairs, and gave a rapid sweep of the hand +over their surfaces. + +"He has been dusting here,--and within a few days, too," she thought +triumphantly. + +The kitchen was perfection, as she always knew it would be, with one +door opening to the shaded road and the other looking on the river; +windows, too, framing the apple-orchard and the elms. She had chosen the +furniture, but how differently it looked now that it was actually in +place! The tiny shed had piles of split wood, with great boxes of +kindlings and shavings, all in readiness for the bride, who would do her +own cooking. Who but Stephen would have made the very wood ready for a +woman's home-coming; and why had he done so much in May, when they were +not to be married until August? Then the door of the bedroom was +stealthily opened, and here Rose sat down and cried for joy and shame +and hope and fear. The very flowered paper she had refused as too +expensive! How lovely it looked with the white chamber set! She brought +in her simple wedding outfit of blankets, bed-linen, and counterpanes, +and folded them softly in the closet; and then for the rest of the +morning she went from room to room, doing all that could remain +undiscovered, even to laying a fire in the new kitchen stove. + +This was the plan. Stephen must pass the house on his way from the River +Farm to the bridge, where he was to join the river-drivers on Monday +morning. She would be out of bed by the earliest peep of dawn, put on +Stephen's favorite pink calico, leave a note for her grandmother, run +like a hare down her side of the river and up Stephen's, steal into the +house, open blinds and windows, light the fire, and set the kettle +boiling. Then with a sharp knife she would cut down two rows of corn, +and thus make a green pathway from the front kitchen steps to the road. +Next, the false and insulting "To Let" sign would be forcibly tweaked +from the tree and thrown into the grass. She would then lay the table in +the kitchen, and make ready the nicest breakfast that two people ever +sat down to. And oh, would two people sit down to it; or would one go +off in a rage and the other die of grief and disappointment? + +Then, having done all, she would wait and palpitate, and palpitate and +wait, until Stephen came. Surely no property-owner in the universe could +drive along a road, observe his corn leveled to the earth, his sign +removed, his house open, and smoke issuing from his chimney, without +going in to surprise the rogue and villain who could be guilty of such +vandalism. + +And when he came in? + +Oh, she had all day Sunday in which to forecast, with mingled dread and +gladness and suspense, that all-important, all-decisive first moment! +All day Sunday to frame and unframe penitent speeches. All day Sunday! +Would it ever be Monday? If so, what would Tuesday bring? Would the sun +rise on happy Mrs. Stephen Waterman of Pleasant River, or on miserable +Miss Rose Wiley of the Brier Neighborhood? + + + + +THE DREAM ROOM + + +Long ago, when Stephen was a boy of fourteen or fifteen, he had gone +with his father to a distant town to spend the night. After an early +breakfast next morning his father had driven off for a business +interview, and left the boy to walk about during his absence. He +wandered aimlessly along a quiet side street, and threw himself down on +the grass outside a pretty garden to amuse himself as best he could. + +After a few minutes he heard voices, and, turning, peeped through the +bars of the gate in idle, boyish curiosity. It was a small brown house; +the kitchen door was open, and a table spread with a white cloth was set +in the middle of the room. There was a cradle in a far corner, and a +man was seated at the table as though he might be waiting for his +breakfast. + +There is a kind of sentiment about the kitchen in New England, a kind of +sentiment not provoked by other rooms. Here the farmer drops in to spend +a few minutes when he comes back from the barn or field on an errand. +Here, in the great, clean, sweet, comfortable place, the busy housewife +lives, sometimes rocking the cradle, sometimes opening and shutting the +oven door, sometimes stirring the pot, darning stockings, paring +vegetables, or mixing goodies in a yellow bowl. The children sit on the +steps, stringing beans, shelling peas, or hulling berries; the cat +sleeps on the floor near the wood-box; and the visitor feels exiled if +he stays in sitting-room or parlor, for here, where the mother is always +busy, is the heart of the farm-house. + +There was an open back door to this kitchen, a door framed in +morning-glories, and the woman (or was she only girl?) standing at the +stove was pretty,--oh, so pretty in Stephen's eyes! His boyish heart +went out to her on the instant. She poured a cup of coffee and walked +with it to the table; then an unexpected, interesting thing +happened--something the boy ought not to have seen, and never forgot. +The man, putting out his hand to take the cup, looked up at the pretty +woman with a smile, and she stooped and kissed him. + +Stephen was fifteen. As he looked, on the instant he became a man, with +a man's hopes, desires, ambitions. He looked eagerly, hungrily, and the +scene burned itself on the sensitive plate of his young heart, so that, +as he grew older, he could take the picture out in the dark, from time +to time, and look at it again. When he first met Rose, he did not know +precisely what she was to mean to him; but before long, when he closed +his eyes and the old familiar picture swam into his field of vision, +behold, by some spiritual chemistry, the pretty woman's face had given +place to that of Rose! + +All such teasing visions had been sternly banished during this sorrowful +summer, and it was a thoughtful, sober Stephen who drove along the road +on this mellow August morning. The dust was deep; the goldenrod waved +its imperial plumes, making the humble waysides gorgeous; the river +chattered and sparkled till it met the logs at the Brier Neighorhood, +and then, lapsing into silence, flowed steadily under them till it found +a vent for its spirits in the dashing and splashing of the falls. + +Haying was over; logging was to begin that day; then harvesting; then +wood-cutting; then eternal successions of plowing, sowing, reaping, +haying, logging, harvesting, and so on, to the endless end of his days. +Here and there a red or a yellow branch, painted only yesterday, caught +his eye and made him shiver. He was not ready for winter; his heart +still craved the summer it had missed. + +Hello! What was that? Corn-stalks prone on the earth? Sign torn down and +lying flat in the grass? Blinds open, fire in the chimney? + +He leaped from the wagon, and, flinging the reins to Alcestis Crambry, +said, "Stay right here out of sight, and don't you move till I call +you!" and striding up the green pathway, flung open the kitchen door. + +A forest of corn waving in the doorway at the back, morning-glories +clambering round and round the window-frames, table with shining white +cloth, kettle humming and steaming, something bubbling in a pan on the +stove, fire throwing out sweet little gleams of welcome through the open +damper. All this was taken in with one incredulous, rapturous twinkle of +an eye; but something else, too: Rose of all roses, Rose of the river, +Rose of the world, standing behind a chair, her hand pressed against +her heart, her lips parted, her breath coming and going! She was +glowing like a jewel, glowing with the extraordinary brilliancy that +emotion gives to some women. She used to be happy in a gay, sparkling +way, like the shallow part of the stream as it chatters over white +pebbles and bright sands. Now it was a broad, steady, full happiness +like the deeps of the river under the sun. + +"Don't speak, Stephen, till you hear what I have to say. It takes a good +deal of courage for a girl to do as I am doing; but I want to show how +sorry I am, and it's the only way." She was trembling, and the words +came faster and faster. "I've been very wrong and foolish, and made you +very unhappy, but I haven't done what you would have hated most. I +haven't been engaged to Claude Merrill; he hasn't so much as asked me. I +am here to beg you to forgive me, to eat breakfast with me, to drive me +to the minister's and marry me quickly, quickly, before anything +happens to prevent us, and then to bring me home here to live all the +days of my life. Oh, Stephen dear, honestly, honestly, you haven't lost +anything in all this long, miserable summer. I've suffered, too, and I'm +better worth loving than I was. Will you take me back?" + +Rose had a tremendous power of provoking and holding love, and Stephen +of loving. His was too generous a nature for revilings and complaints +and reproaches. + +The shores of his heart were strewn with the wreckage of the troubled +summer, but if the tide of love is high enough, it washes such things +out of remembrance. He just opened his arms and took Rose to his heart, +faults and all, with joy and gratitude; and she was as happy as a child +who has escaped the scolding it richly deserved, and who determines, for +very thankfulness' sake, never to be naughty again. + +[Illustration: "DON'T SPEAK, STEPHEN, TILL YOU HEAR WHAT I HAVE TO SAY"] + +"You don't know what you've done for me, Stephen," she whispered, with +her face hidden on his shoulder. "I was just a common little prickly +rosebush when you came along like a good gardener and 'grafted in' +something better; the something better was your love, Stephen dear, and +it's made everything different. The silly Rose you were engaged to long +ago has disappeared somewhere; I hope you won't be able to find her +under the new leaves." + +"She was all I wanted," said Stephen. + +"You thought she was," the girl answered, "because you didn't see the +prickles, but you'd have felt them sometime. The old Rose was a selfish +thing, not good enough for you; the new Rose is going to be your wife, +and Rufus's sister, and your mother's daughter, all in one." + +Then such a breakfast was spread as Stephen, in his sorry years of +bachelor existence, had forgotten could exist; but before he broke his +fast he ran out to the wagon and served the astonished Alcestis with his +wedding refreshments then and there, bidding him drive back to the River +Farm and bring him a package that lay in the drawer of his +shaving-stand,--a package placed there when hot youth and love and longing +had inspired him to hurry on the marriage day. + +"There's an envelope, Alcestis," he cried, "a long envelope way, way +back in the corner, and a small box on top of it. Bring them both, and +my wallet too, and if you find them all and get them to me safely you +shall be bridesmaid and groomsman and best man and usher and maid of +honor at a wedding, in less than an hour! Off with you! Drive straight +and use the whip on Dolly!" + +When he reentered the kitchen, flushed with joy and excitement, Rose put +the various good things on the table and he almost tremblingly took his +seat, fearing that contact with the solid wood might wake him from this +entrancing vision. + +"I'd like to put you in your chair like a queen and wait on you," he +said with a soft boyish stammer; "but I am too dazed with happiness to +be of any use." + +"It's my turn to wait upon you, and I--Oh! how I love to have you +dazed," Rose answered. "I'll be at the table presently myself; but we +have been housekeeping only three minutes, and we have nothing but the +tin coffee-pot this morning, so I'll pour the coffee from the stove." + +She filled a cup with housewifely care and brought it to Stephen's side. +As she set it down and was turning, she caught his look,--a look so full +of longing that no loving woman, however busy, could have resisted it; +then she stooped and kissed him fondly, fervently. + +Stephen put his arm about her, and, drawing her down to his knee, rested +his head against her soft shoulder with a sigh of comfort, like that of +a tired child. He had waited for it ten years, and at last the +dream-room had come true. + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Rose O' the River, by Kate Douglas Wiggin + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ROSE O' THE RIVER *** + +***** This file should be named 1033.txt or 1033.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/1/0/3/1033/ + +Produced by Shanti Day and Roger Frank + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. 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FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.04.29.93*END* + + + + + +Rose O' the River by Kate Douglas Wiggin +This etext was prepared by Shanti Day (sday@childinc.org) + + + + + +Rose O' the River +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 say that the +Crambry family was on hand, for whatever instincts they may have +lacked, the instinct for being on the spot when anything was +happening, was present in them to the most remarkable extent. +The town was supporting them in modest winter quarters somewhat +nearer than Killick to the centre of civilization, and the first +alarm brought them promptly to the scene, Mrs. Crambry remarking +at intervals: "If I'd known there'd be so many out I'd ought to +have worn my bunnit; but I ain't got no bunnit, an' if I had they +say I ain't got no head to wear it on!" + +By the time the jam neared the falls it had grown with its +accumulations, until it was made up of tier after tier of huge +ice cakes, piled side by side and one upon another, with heaps of +trees and branches and drifting lumber holding them in place. +Some of the blocks stood erect and towered like icebergs, and +these, glittering in the lights of the twinkling lanterns, pushed +solemnly forward, cracking, crushing, and cutting everything in +their way. When the great mass neared the planing mill on the +east shore the girls covered their eyes, expecting to hear the +crash of the falling building; but, impelled by the force of some +mysterious current, it shook itself ponderously, and then, with +one magnificent movement, slid up the river bank, tier following +tier in grand confusion. This left a water way for the main +drift; the ice broke in every direction, and down, down, down, +from Bonnie Eagle and Moderation swept the harvest of the winter +freezing. It came thundering over the dam, bringing boats, +farming implements, posts, supports, and every sort of floating +lumber with it; and cutting under the flour mill, tipped it +cleverly over on its side and went crashing on its way down +river. At Edgewood it pushed colossal blocks of ice up the banks +into the roadway, piling them end upon end ten feet in air. +Then, tearing and rumbling and booming through the narrows, it +covered the intervale at Pleasant Point and made a huge ice +bridge below Union Falls, a bridge so solid that it stood there +for days, a sight for all the neighboring villages. + +This exciting event would have forever set apart this winter from +all others in Stephen's memory, even had it not been also the +winter when he was building a house for his future wife. But +afterwards, in looking back on the wild night of the ice freshet, +Stephen remembered that Rose's manner was strained and cold and +evasive, and that when he had seen her talking with Claude +Merrill, it had seemed to him that that whippersnapper had looked +at her as no honorable man in Edgewood ever looked at an engaged +girl. He recalled his throb of gratitude that Claude lived at a +safe distance, and his subsequent pang of remorse at doubting, +for an instant, Rose's fidelity. + +So at length April came, the Saco was still high, turbid, and +angry, and the boys were waiting at Limington Falls for the +"Ossipee drive" to begin. Stephen joined them there, for he was +restless, and the river called him, as it did every spring. Each +stubborn log that he encountered gave him new courage and power of +overcoming. The rush of the water, the noise and roar and dash, +the exposure and danger, all made the blood run in his veins like +new wine. When he came back to the farm, all the cobwebs had been +blown from his brain, and his first interview with Rose was so +intoxicating that he went immediately to Portland, and bought, in +a kind of secret penitence for his former fears, a pale pink-flowered +wall-paper for the bedroom in the new home. It had once been voted +down by the entire advisory committee. Mrs. Wiley said pink was +foolish and was always sure to fade; and the border, being a mass of +solid roses, was five cents a yard, virtually a prohibitive +price. Mr. Wiley said he "should hate to hev a spell of sickness +an' lay abed in a room where there was things growin' all over +the place." He thought "rough-plastered walls, where you could +lay an' count the spots where the roof leaked, was the most +entertainin' in sickness." Rose had longed for the lovely +pattern, but had sided dutifully with the prudent majority, so +that it was with a feeling of unauthorized and illegitimate joy +that Stephen papered the room at night, a few strips at a time. + +On the third evening, when he had removed all signs of his work, +he lighted two kerosene lamps and two candles, finding the +effect, under this illumination, almost too brilliant and +beautiful for belief. Rose should never see it now, he +determined, until the furniture was in place. They had already +chosen the kitchen and bedroom things, though they would not be +needed for some months; but the rest was to wait until summer, +when there would be the hay-money to spend. + +Stephen did not go back to the River Farm till one o'clock that +night; the pink bedroom held him in fetters too powerful to +break. It looked like the garden of Eden, he thought. To be +sure, it was only fifteen feet square; Eden might have been a +little larger, possibly, but otherwise the pink bedroom had every +advantage. The pattern of roses growing on a frellis was +brighter than any flower-bed in June; and the border--well, if +the border had been five dollars a foot Stephen would not have +grudged the money when he saw the twenty running yards of rosy +bloom rioting under the white ceiling. + +Before he blew out the last light he raised it high above his +head and took one fond, final look. "It's the only place I ever +saw," he thought, "that is pretty enough for her. She will look +just as if she was growing here with all the other flowers, and I +shall always think of it as the garden of Eden. I wonder, if I +got the license and the ring and took her by surprise, whether +she'd be married in June instead of August? I could be all ready +if I could only persuade her." + +At this moment Stephen touched the summit of happiness; and it is +a curious coincidence that as he was dreaming in his garden of +Eden, the serpent, having just arrived at Edgewood, was sleeping +peacefully at the house of Mrs. Brooks. + +It was the serpent's fourth visit that season, and he explained +to inquiring friends that his former employer had sold the +business, and that the new management, while reorganizing, had +determined to enlarge the premises, the three clerks who had been +retained having two weeks' vacation with half pay. + +It is extraordinary how frequently "wise serpents" are retained +by the management on half, or even full, salary, while the +services of the "harmless doves" are dispensed with, and they are +set free to flutter where they will. + + + +THE SERPENT + +Rose Wiley had the brightest eyes in Edgewood. It was impossible +to look at her without realizing that her physical sight was +perfect. What mysterious species of blindness is it that +descends, now and then, upon human creatures, and renders them +incapable of judgment or discrimination? + +Claude Merrill was a glove salesman in a Boston fancy-goods +store. The calling itself is undoubtedly respectable, and it is +quite conceivable that a man can sell gloves and still be a man; +but Claude Merrill was a manikin. He inhabited a very narrow +space behind a very short counter, but to him it seemed the earth +and the fullness thereof. + +When, irreproachably neat and even exquisite in dress, he gave a +Napoleonic glance at his array of glove-boxes to see if the +female assistant had put them in proper order for the day; when, +with that wonderful eye for detail that had wafted him to his +present height of power, he pounced upon the powder-sprinklers +and found them, as he expected, empty; when, with masterly +judgment, he had made up and ticketed a basket of misfits and odd +sizes to attract the eyes of women who were their human +counterparts, he felt himself bursting with the pride and pomp of +circumstance. His cambric handkerchief adjusted in his coat with +the monogram corner well displayed, a last touch to the carefully +trained lock on his forehead, and he was ready for his customers. + +"Six, did you say, miss? I should have thought five and three +quarters--Attend to that gentleman, Miss Dir, please; I am very +busy. + +"Six-and-a-half gray suede? Here they are, an exquisite shade. +Shall I try them on? The right hand, if you will. Perhaps you'd +better remove your elegant ring; I shouldn't like to have +anything catch in the setting." + +"Miss Dir! Six-and-a-half black glace--upper shelf, third box +--for this lady. She's in a hurry. We shall see you often +after this, I hope, madam." + +"No; we don't keep silk or lisle gloves. We have no call for +them; our customers prefer kid." + +Oh, but he was in his element, was Claude Merrill; though the +glamour that surrounded him in the minds of the Edgewood girls +did not emanate wholly from his finicky little person: something +of it was the glamour that belonged to Boston,--remote, +fashionable, gay, rich, almost inaccessible Boston, which none +could see without the expenditure of five or six dollars in +railway fare, with the added extravagance of a night in a hotel, +if one would explore it thoroughly and come home possessed of all +its illimitable treasures of wisdom and experience. + +When Claude came to Edgewood for a Sunday, or to spend a vacation +with his aunt, he brought with him something of the magic of a +metropolis. Suddenly, to Rose's eye, Stephen looked larger and +clumsier, his shoes were not the proper sort, his clothes were +ordinary, his neckties were years behind the fashion. Stephen's +dancing, compared with Claude's, was as the deliberate motion of +an ox to the hopping of a neat little robin. When Claude took a +girl's hand in the "grand right-and-left," it was as if he were +about to try on a delicate glove; the manner in which he "held +his lady" in the polka or schottische made her seem a queen. +Mite Shapley was so affected by it that when Rufus attempted to +encircle her for the mazurka she exclaimed, "Don't act as if you +were spearing logs, Rufus!" + +Of the two men, Stephen had more to say, but Claude said more. He +was thought brilliant in conversation; but what wonder, when one +considered his advantages and his dazzling experiences! He had +customers who were worth their thousands; ladies whose fingers +never touched dish-water; ladies who wouldn't buy a glove of +anybody else if they went bare-handed to the grave. He lived +with his sister Maude Arthurlena in a house where there were +twenty-two other boarders who could be seated at meals all at the +same time, so immense was the dining-room. He ate his dinner at +a restaurant daily, and expended twenty-five cents for it without +blenching. He went to the theatre once a week, and was often +accompanied by "lady friends" who were "elegant dressers." + +In a moment of wrath Stephen had called him a "counter-jumper," +but it was a libel. So short and rough a means of exit from his +place of power was wholly beneath Claude's dignity. It was with +a "Pardon me, Miss Dir," that, the noon hour having arrived, he +squeezed by that slave and victim, and raising the hinged board +that separated his kingdom from that of the ribbon department, +passed out of the store, hat in hand, serene in the consciousness +that though other clerks might nibble luncheon from a brown paper +bag, he would speedily be indulging in an expensive repast; and +Miss Dir knew it, and it was a part of his almost invincible +attraction for her. + +It seemed flying in the face of Providence to decline the +attentions of such a gorgeous butterfly of fashion simply because +one was engaged to marry another man at some distant day. + +All Edgewood femininity united in saying that there never was +such a perfect gentleman as Claude Merrill; and during the time +when his popularity was at its height Rose lost sight of the fact +that Stephen could have furnished the stuff for a dozen Claudes +and have had enough left for an ordinary man besides. + +April gave place to May, and a veil hung between the lovers,-- +an intangible, gossamer-like thing, not to be seen with the naked +eye, but, oh! so plainly to be felt. Rose hid herself thankfully +behind it, while Stephen had not courage to lift a corner. She +had twice been seen driving with Claude Merrill--that Stephen +knew; but she had explained that there were errands to be done, +that her grandfather had taken the horse, and that Mr. Merrill's +escort had been both opportune and convenient for these practical +reasons. Claude was everywhere present, the centre of +attraction, the observed of all observers. He was irresistible, +contagious, almost epidemic. Rose was now gay, now silent; now +affectionate, now distant, now coquettish; in fine, everything +that was capricious, mysterious, agitating, incomprehensible. + +One morning Alcestis Crambry went to the post-office for Stephen +and brought him back the newspapers and letters. He had hung +about the River Farm so much that Stephen finally gave him bed +and food in exchange for numberless small errands. Rufus was +temporarily confined in a dark room with some strange pain and +trouble in his eyes, and Alcestis proved of use in many ways. He +had always been Rose's slave, and had often brought messages and +notes from the Brier Neighborhood, so that when Stephen saw a +folded note among the papers his heart gave a throb of +anticipation. + +The note was brief, and when he had glanced through it he said: +"This is not mine, Alcestis; it belongs to Miss Rose. Go +straight back and give it to her as you were told; and another +time keep your wits about you, or I'll send you back to Killick." + +Alcestis Crambry's ideas on all subjects were extremely vague. +Claude Merrill had given him a letter for Rose, but his notion +was that anything that belonged to her belonged to Stephen, and +the Waterman place was much nea'rer than the Wileys', particularly +at dinner-time! + +When the boy had slouched away, Stephen sat under the apple tree, +now a mass of roseate bloom, and buried his face in his hands. + +It was not precisely a love-letter that he had read, nevertheless +it blackened the light of the sun for him. Claude asked Rose to +meet him anywhere on the road to the station and to take a little +walk, as he was leaving that afternoon and could not bear to say +good-by to her in the presence of her grandmother. "Under the +circumstances," he wrote, deeply underlining the words, "I cannot +remain a moment longer in Edgewood, where I have been so happy +and so miserable!" He did not refer to the fact that the time +limit on his return-ticket expired that day, for his dramatic +instinct told him that such sordid matters have no place in +heroics. + +Stephen sat motionless under the tree for an hour, deciding on +some plan of action. + +He had work at the little house, but he did not dare go there +lest he should see the face of dead Love looking from the windows +of the pink bedroom; dead Love, cold, sad, merciless. His cheeks +burned as he thought of the marriage license and the gold ring +hidden away upstairs in the drawer of his shaving stand. What a +romantic fool he had been, to think he could hasten the glad day +by a single moment! What a piece of boyish folly it had been, +and how it shamed him in his own eyes! When train time drew near +he took his boat and paddled down stream. If for the Finland +lover's reindeer there was but one path in all the world, and +that the one that led to Her, so it was for Stephen's canoe, +which, had it been set free on the river by day or by night, +might have floated straight to Rose. + +He landed at the usual place, a bit of sandy shore near the Wiley +house, and walked drearily up the bank through the woods. Under +the shade of the pines the white stars of the hepatica glistened +and the pale anemones were coming into bloom. Partridge-berries +glowed red under their glossy leaves, and clumps of violets +sweetened the air. Squirrels chattered, woodpeckers tapped, +thrushes sang; but Stephen was blind and deaf to all the sweet +harbingers of spring. + +Just then he heard voices, realizing with a throb of delight +that, at any rate, Rose had not left home to meet Claude, as he +had asked her to do. Looking through the branches, he saw the +two standing together, Mrs. Brooks's horse; with the offensive +trunk in the back of the wagon, being hitched to a tree near by. +There was nothing in the tableau to stir Stephen to fury, but he +read between the lines and suffered as he read--suffered and +determined to sacrifice himself if he must, so that Rose could +have what she wanted, this miserable apology for a man. He had +never been the husband for Rose; she must take her place in a +larger community, worthy of her beauty and charm. + +Claude was talking and gesticulating ardently. Rose's head was +bent and the tears were rolling down her cheeks. Suddenly Claude +raised his hat, and with a passionate gesture of renunciation +walked swiftly to the wagon, and looking back once, drove off +with the utmost speed of which the Brooks's horse was capable,-- +Rose waving him a farewell with one hand and wiping her eyes with +the other. + + + +THE TURQUOISE RING + +Stephen stood absolutely still in front of the opening in the +trees, and as Rose turned she met him face to face. She had +never dreamed his eyes could be so stern, his mouth so hard, and +she gave a sob like a child. + +"You seem to be in trouble," Stephen said in a voice so cold she +thought it could not be his. + +"I am not in trouble, exactly," Rose stammered, concealing her +discomfiture as well as possible. "I am a little unhappy because +I have made some one else unhappy; and now that you know it, you +will be unhappy too, and angry besides, I suppose, though you've +seen everything there was to see." + +"There is no occasion for sorrow, Stephen said. "I didn't mean +to break in on any interview; I came over to give you back your +freedom. If you ever cared enough for me to marry me, the time +has gone by. I am willing to own that I over-persuaded you, but +I am not the man to take a girl against her inclinations, so we +will say good-by and end the thing here and now. I can only wish +--here his smothered rage at fate almost choked him--"that, +when you were selecting another husband, you had chosen a whole +man!" + +Rose quivered with the scorn of his tone. "Size isn't +everything!" she blazed. + +"Not in bodies, perhaps; but it counts for something in hearts +and brains, and it is convenient to have a sense of honor that's +at least as big as a grain of mustard-seed." + +"Claude Merrill is not dishonorable," Rose exclaimed impetuously; +"or at least he isn't as bad as you think: he has never asked +me to marry him." + +"Then he probably was not quite ready to speak, or perhaps you +were not quite ready to hear," retorted Stephen, bitterly; "but +don't let us have words,--there'll be enough to regret without +adding those. I have seen, ever since New Year's, that you were +not really happy or contented; only I wouldn't allow it to +myself: I kept hoping against hope that I was mistaken. There +have been times when I would have married you, willing or +unwilling, but I didn't love you so well then; and now that +there's another man in the case, it's different, and I'm strong +enough to do the right thing. Follow your heart and be happy; in +a year or two I shall be glad I had the grit to tell you so. +Good-by, Rose!" + +Rose, pale with amazement, summoned all her pride, and drawing +the turquoise engagement ring from her finger, handed it silently +to Stephen, hiding her face as he flung it vehemently down the +river-bank. His dull eyes followed it and half uncomprehendingly +saw it settle and glisten in a nest of brown pine-needles. Then +he put out his hand for a last clasp and strode away without a +word. + +Presently Rose heard first the scrape of his boat on the sand, +then the soft sound of his paddles against the water, then +nothing but the squirrels and the woodpeckers and the thrushes, +then not even these,--nothing but the beating of her own heart. + +She sat down heavily, feeling as if she were wide awake for the +first time in many weeks. How had things come to this pass with +her? + +Claude Merrill had flattered her vanity and given her some +moments of restlessness and dissatisfaction with her lot; but he +had not until to-day really touched her heart or tempted her, +even momentarily, from her allegiance to Stephen. His eyes had +always looked unspeakable things; his voice had seemed to breathe +feelings that he had never dared put in words; but to-day he had +really stirred her, for although he had still been vague, it was +easy to see that his love for her had passed all bounds of +discretion. She remembered his impassioned farewells, his +despair, his doubt as to whether he could forget her by plunging +into the vortex of business, or whether he had better end it all +in the river, as so many other broken-hearted fellows had done. +She had been touched by his misery, even against her better +judgment; and she had intended to confess it all to Stephen +sometime, telling him that she should never again accept +attentions from a stranger, lest a tragedy like this should +happen twice in a lifetime. + +She had imagined that Stephen would be his large-minded, +great-hearted, magnanimous self, and beg her to forget this +fascinating will-o'the-wisp by resting in his deeper, serener +love. She had meant to be contrite and faithful, praying nightly +that poor Claude might live down his present anguish, of which +she had been the innocent cause. + +Instead, what had happened? She had been put altogether in the +wrong. Stephen had almost cast her off, and that, too, without +argument. He had given her her liberty before she had asked for +it, taking it for granted, without question, that she desired to +be rid of him. Instead of comforting her in her remorse, or +sympathizing with her for so nobly refusing to shine in Claude's +larger world of Boston, Stephen had assumed that she was disloyal +in every particular. + +And pray how was she to cope with such a disagreeable and +complicated situation? + +It would not be long before the gossips rolled under their +tongues the delicious morsel of a broken engagement, and sooner +or later she must brave the displeasure of her grandmother. + +And the little house--that was worse than anything. Her tears +flowed faster as she thought of Stephen's joy in it, of his +faithful labor, of the savings he had invested in it. She hated +and despised her self when she thought of the house, and for the +first time in her life she realized the limitations of her +nature, the poverty of her ideals. + +What should she do? She had lost Stephen and ruined his life. +Now, in order that she need not blight a second career, must she +contrive to return Claude's love! To be sure, she thought, it +seemed indecent to marry any other man than Stephen, when they +had built a house together, and chosen wall-papers, and a kitchen +stove, and dining-room chairs; but was it not the only way to +evade the difficulties? + +Suppose that Stephen, in a fit of pique, should ask somebody else +to share the new cottage? + +As this dreadful possibility came into view, Rose's sobs actually +frightened the birds and the squirrels. She paced back and forth +under the trees, wondering how she could have been engaged to a +man for eight months and know so little about him as she seemed +to know about Stephen Waterman to-day. Who would have believed +he could be so autocratic, so severe, so unapproachable! Who +could have foreseen that she, Rose Wiley, would ever be given up +to another man,--handed over as coolly as if she had been a +bale of cotton? She wanted to return Claude Merrill's love +because it was the only way out of the tangle; but at the moment +she almost hated him for making so much trouble, for hurting +Stephen, for abasing her in her own eyes, and, above all, for +giving her rustic lover the chance of impersonating an injured +emperor. + +It did not simplify the situation to have Mite Shapley come in +during the evening and run upstairs, uninvited, to sit on the +toot of her bed and chatter. + +Rose had closed her blinds and lay in the dark, pleading a +headache. + +Mite was in high feather. She had met Claude Merrill going to +the station that afternoon. He was much too early for the train, +which the station agent reported to be behind time, so he had +asked her to take a drive. She didn't know how it happened, for +he looked at his watch every now and then; but, anyway, they got +to laughing and "carrying on," and when they came back to the +station the train had gone. Wasn't that the greatest joke of +the season? What did Rose suppose they did next? + +Rose didn't know and didn't care; her head ached too badly. + +Well, they had driven to Wareham, and Claude had hired a livery +team there, and had been taken into Portland with his trunk, and +she had brought Mrs. Brooks's horse back to Edgewood. Wasn't +that ridiculous? And hadn't she cut out Rose where she least +expected? + +Rose was distinctly apathetic, and Mite Shapley departed after a +very brief call, leaving behind her an entirely new train of +thought. + +If Claude Merrill were so love-blighted that he could only by the +greatest self-control keep from flinging himself into the river, +how could he conceal his sufferings so completely from Mite +Shapley,--little shallow-pated, scheming coquette? + +"So that pretty Merrill feller has gone, has he, mother?" +inquired Old Kennebec that night, as he took off his wet shoes +and warmed his feet at the kitchen oven. "Well, it ain't a mite +too soon. I allers distrust that pink-an'-white, rosy-posy kind +of a man. One of the most turrible things that ever happened in +Gard'ner was brought about by jest sech a feller. Mothers hedn't +hardly ought to name their boy babies Claude without they +expect 'em to play the dickens with the girls. I don' know +nothin' 'bout the fust Claude, there ain't none of 'em in the +Bible, air they, but whoever he was, I bate ye he hed a deceivin' +tongue. If it hedn't be'n for me, that Claude in Gard'ner would +'a' run away with my brother's fust wife; an' I'll tell ye jest +how I contrived to put a spoke in his wheel." + +But Mrs. Wiley, being already somewhat familiar with the +circumstances, had taken her candle and retired to her virtuous +couch. + + + +ROSE SEES THE WORLD + +Was this the world, after all? Rose asked herself; and, if so, +what was amiss with it, and where was the charm, the +bewilderment, the intoxication, the glamour! + +She had been glad to come to Boston, for the last two weeks in +Edgewood had proved intolerable. She had always been a favorite +heretofore, from the days when the boys fought for the privilege +of dragging her sled up the hills, and filling her tiny mitten +with peppermints, down to the year when she came home from the +Wareham Female Seminary, an acknowledged belle and beauty. +Suddenly she had felt her popularity dwindling. There was no +real change in the demeanor of her acquaintances, but there was a +certain subtle difference of atmosphere. Everybody sympathized +tacitly with Stephen, and she did not wonder, for there were +times when she secretly took his part against herself. Only a +few candid friends had referred to the rupture openly in +conversation, but these had been bluntin their disapproval. + +It seemed part of her ill fortune that just at this time Rufus +should be threatened with partial blindness, and that Stephen's +heart, already sore, should be torn with new anxieties. She +could hardly bear to see the doctor's carriage drive by day after +day, and hear night after night that Rufus was unresigned, +melancholy, half mad; while Stephen, as the doctor said, was +brother, mother, and father in one, as gentle as a woman, as firm +as Gibraltar. + +These foes to her peace of mind all came from within; but without +was the hourly reproach of her grandmother, whose scorching +tongue touched every sensitive spot in the girl's nature and +burned it like fire. + +Finally a way of escape opened. Mrs. Wealthy Brooks, who had +always been rheumatic, grew suddenly worse. She had heard of a +"magnetic" physician in Boston, also of one who used electricity +with wonderful effect, and she announced her intention of taking +both treatments impartially and alternately. The neighbors were +quite willing that Wealthy Ann Brooks should spend the deceased +Ezra's money in any way she pleased,--she had earned it, +goodness knows, by living with him for twenty-five years,--but +before the day for her departure arrived her right arm and knee +became so much more painful that it was impossible for her to +travel alone. + +At this juncture Rose was called upon to act as nurse and +companion in a friendly way. She seized the opportunity hungrily +as a way out of her present trouble; but, knowing what Mrs. +Brooks's temper was in time of health, she could see clearly what +it was likely to prove when pain and anguish wrung the brow. + +Rose had been in Boston now for some weeks, and she was sitting +in the Joy Street boarding-house,--Joy Street, forsooth! It +was nearly bedtime, and she was looking out upon a huddle of +roofs and back yards, upon a landscape filled with clothes-lines, +ash-barrels, and ill-fed cats. There were no sleek country +tabbies, with the memory in their eyes of tasted cream, nothing +but city-born, city-bred, thin, despairing cats of the pavement, +cats no more forlorn than Rose herself. + +She had "seen Boston," for she had accompanied Mrs. Brooks in the +horse-cars daily to the two different temples of healing where +that lady worshipped and offered sacrifices. She had also gone +with Maude Arthurlena to Claude Merrill's store to buy pair of +gloves, and had overheard Miss Dir (the fashionable +"lady-assistant" before mentioned) say to Miss Brackett of the +ribbon department, that she thought Mr. Merrill must have worn +his blinders that time he stayed so long in Edgewood. This bit +of polished irony was unintelligible to Rose at first, but she +mastered it after an hour's reflection. She wasn't looking her +best that day, she knew; the cotton dresses that seemed so pretty +at home were common and countrified here, and her best black +cashmere looked cheap and shapeless beside Miss Dir's +brilliantine. Miss Dir's figure was her strong point, and her +dressmaker was particularly skillful in the arts of suggestion, +concealment, and revelation. Beauty has its chosen backgrounds. +Rose in white dimity, standing knee deep in her blossoming brier +bushes, the river running at her feet, dark pine trees behind her +graceful head, sounded depths and touched heights of harmony +forever beyond the reach of the modish Miss Dir, but she was out +of her element and suffered accordingly. + +Rose had gone to walk with Claude one evening when she first +arrived. He had shown her the State House and the Park Street +Church, and sat with her on one of the benches in the Common +until nearly ten. She knew that Mrs. Brooks had told her nephew +of the broken engagement, but he made no reference to the matter, +save to congratulate her that she was rid of a man who was so +clumsy, so dull and behind the times, as Stephen Waterman, saying +that he had always marveled she could engage herself to anybody +who could insult her by offering her a turquoise ring. + +Claude was very interesting that evening, Rose thought, but +rather gloomy and unlike his former self. He referred to his +grave responsibilities, to the frail health of Maude Arthurlena, +and to the vicissitudes of business. He vaguely intimated that +his daily life in the store was not so pleasant as it had been +formerly; that there were "those" (he would speak no more +plainly) who embarrassed him with undesired attentions, "those" +who, without the smallest shadow of right, vexed him with petty +jealousies. + +Rose dared not ask questions on so delicate a topic, but she +remembered in a flash Miss Dir's heavy eyebrows, snapping eyes, +and high color. Claude seemed very happy that Rose had come to +Boston, though he was surprised, knowing what a trial his aunt +must be, now that she was so helpless. It was unfortunate, also, +that Rose could not go on excursions without leaving his aunt +alone, or he should have been glad to offer his escort. He +pressed her hand when he left her at her door, telling her she +could never realize what a comfort her friendship was to him; +could never imagine how thankful he was that she had courageously +freed herself from ties that in time would have made her +wretched. His heart was full, he said, of feelings he dared not +utter; but in the near future, when certain clouds had rolled by, +he would unlock its treasures, and then--but no more to-night: +he could not trust himself. + +Rose felt as if she were assuming one of the characters in a +mysterious romance, such as unfolded itself only in books or in +Boston; but, thrilling as it was, it was nevertheless extremely +unsatisfactory. + +Convinced that Claude Merrill was passionately in love with her, +one of her reasons for coming to Boston had been to fall more +deeply in love with him, and thus heal some, at least, of the +wounds she had inflicted. It may have been a foolish idea, but +after three weeks it seemed still worse,--a useless one; for +after several interviews she felt herself drifting farther and +farther from Claude; and if he felt any burning ambition to make +her his own, he certainly concealed it with admirable art. Given +up, with the most offensive magnanimity, by Stephen, and not +greatly desired by Claude,--that seemed the present status of +proud Rose Wiley of the Brier Neighborhood. + +It was June, she remembered, as she leaned out of the open +window; at least it was June in Edgewood, and she supposed for +convenience's sake they called it June in Boston. Not that it +mattered much what the poor city prisoners called it. How +beautiful the river would be at home, with the trees along the +banks in full leaf! How she hungered and thirsted for the river, +--to see it sparkle in the sunlight; to watch the moonglade +stretching from one bank to the other; to hear the soft lap of +the water on the shore, and the distant murmur of the falls at +the bridge! And the Brier Neighborhood would be at its +loveliest, for the wild roses were in blossom by now. And the +little house! How sweet it must look under the shade of the +elms, with the Saco rippling at the back! Was poor Rufus still +lying in a darkened room, and was Stephen nursing him,-- +disappointed Stephen,--dear, noble old Stephen? + + + +GOLD AND PINCHBECK + +Just then Mrs. Brooks groaned in the next room and called Rose, +who went in to minister to her real needs, or to condole with her +fancied ones, whichever course of action appeared to be the more +agreeable at the moment. + +Mrs. Brooks desired conversation, it seemed, or at least she +desired an audience for a monologue, for she recognized no +antiphonal obligations on the part of her listeners. The doctors +were not doing her a speck of good, and she was just squandering +money in a miserable boarding-house, when she might be enjoying +poor health in her own home; and she didn't believe her hens +were receiving proper care, and she had forgotten to pull down +the shades in the spare room, and the sun would fade the carpet +out all white before she got back, and she didn't believe Dr. +Smith's magnetism was any more use than a cat's foot, nor Dr. +Robinson's electricity any better than a bumblebee's buzz, and +she had a great mind to go home and try Dr. Lord from Bonnie +Eagle; and there was a letter for Rose on the bureau, which had +come before supper, but the shiftless, lazy, worthless landlady +had forgotten to send it up till just now. + +The letter was from Mite Shapley, but Rose could read only half +of it to Mrs. Brooks,--little beside the news that the Waterman +barn, the finest barn in the whole township, had been struck by +lightning and burned to the ground. Stephen was away at the +time, having taken Rufus to Portland, where an operation on his +eyes would shortly be performed at the hospital, and one of the +neighbors was sleeping at the River Farm and taking care of the +cattle; still the house might not have been saved but for one of +Alcestis Crambry's sudden bursts of common sense, which occurred +now quite regularly. He succeeded not only in getting the horses +out of the stalls, but gave the alarm so promptly that the whole +neighborhood was soon on the scene of action. Stephen was the +only man, Mite reminded Rose, who ever had any patience with, or +took any pains to teach, Alcestis, but he never could have +expected to be rewarded in this practical way. The barn was only +partly insured; and when she had met Stephen at the station next +day, and condoled with him on his loss, he had said: "Oh, well, +Mite, a little more or less doesn't make much difference just +now." + +"The rest wouldn't interest you, Mrs. Brooks," said Rose, +precipitately preparing to leave the room. + +"Something about Claude, I suppose," ventured that astute lady. +"I think Mite kind of fancied him. I don't believe he ever gave +her any real encouragement; but he'd make love to a pump, Claude +Merrill would; and so would his father before him. How my sister +Abby made out to land him we never knew, for they said he'd +proposed to every woman in the town of Bingham, not excepting the +wooden Indian girl in front of the cigar store, and not one of +'em but our Abby ever got a chance to name the day. Abby was as +set as the everlastin' hills, and if she'd made up her mind to +have a man he couldn't wriggle away from her nohow in the world. +It beats all how girls do run after these slick-haired, +sweet-tongued, Miss Nancy kind o' fellers, that ain't but little +good as beaux an' worth less than nothing as husbands." + +Rose scarcely noticed what Mrs. Brooks said, she was too anxious +to read the rest of Mite Shapley's letter in the quiet of her own +room. + +"Stephen looks thin and pale [so it ran on], but he does not +allow anybody to sympathize with him. I think you ought to know +something that I haven't told you before for fear of hurting your +feelings; but if I were in your place I'd like to hear +everything, and then you'll know how to act when you come home. +Just after you left, Stephen plowed up all the land in front of +your new house,--every inch of it, all up and down the road, +between the fence and the front door-step,--and then he planted +corn where you were going to have your flower-beds. + +"He has closed all the blinds and hung a 'To Let' sign on the +large elm at the gate. Stephen never was spiteful in his life, +but this looks a little like spite. Perhaps he only wanted to +save his self-respect and let people know, that everything +between you was over forever. Perhaps he thought it would stop +talk once and for all. But you won't mind, you lucky girl, +staying nearly three months in Boston! [So Almira purled on in +violet ink, with shaded letters.] How I wish it had come my way, +though I'm not good at rubbing rheumatic patients, even when they +are his aunt. Is he as devoted as ever? And when will it be? +How do you like the theatre? Mother thinks you won't attend; +but, by what he used to say, I am sure church members in Boston +always go to amusements. + +"Your loving friend, + +"Almira Shapley. + +"P.S. They say Rufus's doctor's bills here, and the operation +and hospital expenses in Portland, will mount up to five hundred +dollars. Of course Stephen will be dreadfully hampered by the +loss of his barn, and maybe he wants to let your house that was +to be, because he really needs money. In that case the dooryard +won't be very attractive to tenants, with corn planted right up +to the steps--and no path left! It's two feet tall now, and by +August (just when you were intending to move in) it will hide the +front windows. Not that you'll care, with a diamond on your +engagement finger!" + +The letter was more than flesh and blood could stand, and Rose +flung herself on her bed to think and regret and repent, and, if +possible, to sob herself to sleep. + +She knew now that she had never admired and respected Stephen so +much as at the moment when, under the reproach of his eyes, she +had given him back his ring. When she left Edgewood and parted +with him forever she had really loved him better than when she +had promised to marry him. + +Claude Merrill, on his native Boston heath, did not appear the +romantic, inspiring figure he had once been in her eyes. A week +ago she distrusted him; to-night she despised him. + +What had happened to Rose was the dilation of her vision. She +saw things under a wider sky and in a clearer light. Above all, +her heart was wrung with pity for Stephen--Stephen, with no +comforting woman's hand to help him in his sore trouble; Stephen, +bearing his losses alone, his burdens and anxieties alone, his +nursing and daily work alone. Oh, how she felt herself needed! +Needed! that was the magic word that unlocked her better nature. +"Darkness is the time for making roots and establishing plants, +whether of the soil or of the soul," and all at once Rose had +become a woman: a little one, perhaps, but a whole woman--and +a bit of an angel, too, with healing in her wings. When and how +had this metamorphosis come about? Last summer the fragile +brier-rose had hung over the river and looked at its pretty +reflection in the placid surface of the water. Its few buds and +blossoms were so lovely, it sighed for nothing more. The changes +in the plant had been wrought secretly and silently. In some +mysterious way, as common to soul as to plant life, the roots had +gathered in more nourishment from the earth, they had stored up +strength and force, and all at once there was a marvelous +fructifying of the plant, hardiness of stalk, new shoots +everywhere, vigorous leafage, and a shower of blossoms. + +But everything was awry: Boston was a failure; Claude was a +weakling and a flirt; her turquoise ring was lying on the +riverbank; Stephen did not love her any longer; her flower-beds +were plowed up and planted in corn; and the cottage that Stephen +had built and she had furnished, that beloved cottage, was to +let. + +She was in Boston; but what did that amount to, after all? What +was the State House to a bleeding heart, or the Old South Church +to a pride wounded like hers? + +At last she fell asleep, but it was only by stopping her ears to +the noises of the city streets and making herself imagine the +sound of the river rippling under her bedroom windows at home. +The back yards of Boston faded, and in their place came the banks +of the Saco, strewn with pine needles, fragrant with wild +flowers. Then there was the bit of sunny beach, where Stephen +moored his boat. She could hear the sound of his paddle. Boston +lovers came a-courting in the horse-cars, but hers had floated +down stream to her just at dusk in a birch-bark canoe, or +sometimes, in the moonlight, on a couple of logs rafted together. + +But it was all over now, and she could see only Stephen's stern +face as he flung the despised turquoise ring down the river bank. + + + +A COUNTRY CHEVALIER + +It was early in August when Mrs. Wealthy Brooks announced her +speedy return from Boston to Edgewood. + +"It's jest as well Rose is comin' back," said Mr. Wiley to his +wife. "I never favored her goin' to Boston, where that rosyposy +Claude feller is. When he was down here he was kep' kind o' tied +up in a boxstall, but there he's caperin' loose round the +pastur'." + +"I should think Rose would be ashamed to come back, after the way +she's carried on," remarked Mrs. Wiley, "but if she needed +punishment I guess she's got it bein' comp'ny-keeper to Wealthy +Ann Brooks. Bein' a church member in good an' reg'lar standin', +I s'pose Wealthy Ann'll go to heaven, but I can only say that it +would be a sight pleasanter place for a good many if she didn't." + +"Rose has be'n foolish an' flirty an' wrong-headed," allowed her +grandfather; "but it won't do no good to treat her like a +hardened criminile, same's you did afore she went away. She +ain't hardly got her wisdom teeth cut, in love affairs! She +ain't broke the laws of the State o' Maine, nor any o' the ten +commandments; she ain't disgraced the family, an' there's a +chance for her to reform, seein' as how she ain't twenty year old +yet. I was turrible wild an' hot-headed myself afore you ketched +me an' tamed me down." + +"You ain't so tame now as I wish you was," Mrs. Wiley replied +testily. + +"If you could smoke a clay pipe 'twould calm your nerves, mother, +an' help you to git some philosophy inter you; you need a little +philosophy turrible bad." + +"I need patience consid'able more," was Mrs. Wiley's withering +retort. + +"That's the way with folks," said Old Kennebec reflectively, as +he went on peacefully puffing. "If you try to indoose 'em to +take an int'rest in a bran'-new virtue, they won't look at it; +but they'll run down a side street an' buy half a yard more o' +some turrible old shopworn trait o' character that they've kep' +in stock all their lives, an' that everybody's sick to death of. +There was a man in Gard'ner"-- + +But alas! the experiences of the Gardiner man, though told in the +same delightful fashion that had won Mrs. Wiley's heart many +years before, now fell upon the empty air. In these years of Old +Kennebec's "anecdotage," his pipe was his best listener and his +truest confidant. + +Mr. Wiley's constant intercessions with his wife made Rose's +home-coming somewhat easier, and the sight of her own room and +belongings soothed her troubled spirit, but the days went on, and +nothing happened to change the situation. She had lost a lover, +that was all, and there were plenty more to choose from, or there +always had been; but the only one she wanted was the one who made +no sign. She used to think that she could twist Stephen around +her little finger; that she had only to beckon to him and he +would follow her to the ends of the earth. Now fear had entered +her heart. She no longer felt sure, because she no longer felt +worthy, of him, and feeling both uncertainty and unworthiness, +her lips were sealed and she was rendered incapable of making any +bid for forgiveness. + +So the little world of Pleasant River went on, to all outward +seeming, as it had ever gone. On one side of the stream a girl's +heart was longing, and pining, and sickening, with hope deferred, +and growing, too, with such astonishing rapidity that the very +angels marveled! And on the other, a man's whole vision of life +and duty was widening and deepening under the fructifying +influence of his sorrow. + +The corn waved high and green in front of the vacant riverside +cottage, but Stephen sent no word or message to Rose. He had +seen her once, but only from a distance. She seemed paler and +thinner, he thought,--the result; probably, of her metropolitan +gayeties. He heard no rumor of any engagement, and he wondered +if it were possible that her love for Claude Merrill had not, +after all, been returned in kind. This seemed a wild +impossibility. His mind refused to entertain the supposition +that any man on earth could resist falling in love with Rose, or, +having fallen in, that he could ever contrive to climb out. So +he worked on at his farm harder than ever, and grew soberer and +more careworn daily. Rufus had never seemed so near and dear to +him as in these weeks when he had lived under the shadow of +threatened blindness. The burning of the barn and the strain +upon their slender property brought the brothers together +shoulder to shoulder. + +"If you lose your girl, Steve," said the boy, "and I lose my +eyesight, and we both lose the barn, why, t'll be us two against +the world, for a spell!" + +The "To Let" sign on the little house was an arrant piece of +hypocrisy. Nothing but the direst extremity could have caused +him to allow an alien step on that sacred threshold. The plowing +up of the flowerbeds and planting of the corn had served a double +purpose. It showed the too curious public the finality of his +break with Rose and her absolute freedom; it also prevented them +from suspecting that he still entered the place. His visits were +not many, but he could not bear to let the dust settle on the +furniture that he and Rose had chosen together; and whenever he +locked the door and went back to the River Farm, he thought of a +verse in the Bible: "Therefore the Lord God sent him forth from +the Garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken." + +It was now Friday of the last week in August. The river was full +of logs, thousands upon thousands of them covering the surface of +the water from the bridge almost up to the Brier Neighborhood. + +The Edgewood drive was late, owing to a long drought and low +water; but it was to begin on the following Monday, and Lije +Dennett and his under boss were looking over the situation and +planning the campaign. As they leaned over the bridge-rail they +saw Mr. Wiley driving down the river road. When he caught sight +of them he hitched the old white horse at the corner and walked +toward them, filling his pipe the while in his usual leisurely +manner. + +"We're not busy this forenoon," said Lije Dennett. "S'pose we +stand right here and let Old Kennebec have his say out for once. +We've never heard the end of one of his stories, an' he's be'n +talkin' for twenty years." + +"All right," rejoined his companion, with a broad grin at the +idea. "I'm willin', if you are; but who's goin' to tell our +fam'lies the reason we've deserted 'em! I bate yer we sha'n't +budge till the crack o' doom. The road commissioner'll come +along once a year and mend the bridge under our feet, but Old +Kennebec'll talk straight on till the day o' jedgment." + +Mr. Wiley had one of the most enjoyable mornings of his life, and +felt that after half a century of neglect his powers were at last +appreciated by his fellow-citizens. + +He proposed numerous strategic movements to be made upon the +logs, whereby they would move more swiftly than usual. He +described several successful drives on the Kennebec, when the +logs had melted down the river almost by magic, owing to his +generalship; and he paid a tribute, in passing, to the docility +of the boss, who on that occasion had never moved a single log +without asking his advice. + +From this topic he proceeded genially to narrate the +life-histories of the boss, the under boss, and several Indians +belonging to the crew,--histories in which he himself played a +gallant and conspicuous part. The conversation then drifted +naturally to the exploits of river-drivers in general, and Mr. +Wiley narrated the sorts of feats in log-riding, +pickpole-throwing, and the shooting of rapids that he had done in +his youth. These stories were such as had seldom been heard by +the ear of man; and, as they passed into circulation +instantaneously, we are probably enjoying some of them to this +day. + +They were still being told when a Crambry child appeared on the +bridge, bearing a note for the old man. + +Upon reading it he moved off rapidly in the direction of the +store, ejaculating: + +"Bless my soul! I clean forgot that saleratus, and mother's +settin' at the kitchen table with the bowl in her lap, waitin' +for it! Got so int'rested in your list'nin' I never thought o' +the time." + +The connubial discussion that followed this breach of discipline +began on the arrival of the saleratus, and lasted through supper; +and Rose went to bed almost immediately afterward for very +dullness and apathy. Her life stretched out before her in the +most aimless and monotonous fashion. She saw nothing but +heartache in the future; and that she richly deserved it made it +none the easier to bear. + +Feeling feverish and sleepless, she slipped on her gray Shaker +cloak and stole quietly downstairs for a breath of air. Her +grandfather and grandmother were talking on the piazza, and good +humor seemed to have been restored. + +"I was over to the tavern to-night," she heard him say, as she +sat down at a little distance. "I was over to the tavern +to-night, an' a feller from Gorham got to talkin' an' braggin' +'bout what a stock o' goods they kep' in the store over there. +'An','says I, 'I bate ye dollars to doughnuts that there hain't +a darn thing ye can ask for at Bill Pike's store at Pleasant +River that he can't go down cellar, or up attic, or out in the +barn chamber an' git for ye.' Well, sir, he took me up, an' I +borrered the money of Joe Dennett, who held the stakes, an' we +went right over to Bill Pike's with all the boys follerin' on +behind. An' the Gorham man never let on what he was goin' to ask +for till the hull crowd of us got inside the store. Then says +he, as p'lite as a basket o' chips, 'Mr. Pike, I'd like to buy a +pulpit if you can oblige me with one.' + +"Bill scratched his head an' I held my breath. Then says he, +'Pears to me I'd ought to hev a pulpit or two, if I can jest +remember where I keep 'em. I don't never cal'late to be out o' +pulpits, but I'm so plagued for room I can't keep 'em in here with +the groc'ries. Jim (that's his new store boy), you jest take a +lantern an' run out in the far corner o' the shed, at the end +o' the hickory woodpile, an' see how many pulpits we've got in +stock!' Well, Jim run out, an' when he come back he says, 'We've +got two, Mr. Pike. Shall I bring one of 'em in?' + +"At that the boys all bust out laughin' an' hollerin' an' +tauntin' the Gorham man, an' he paid up with a good will, I tell +ye!" + +"I don't approve of bettin'," said Mrs. Wiley grimly, "but I'll +try to sanctify the money by usin' it for a new wash-boiler." + +"The fact is," explained old Kennebec, somewhat confused, "that +the boys made me spend every cent of it then an' there." + +Rose heard her grandmother's caustic reply, and then paid no +further attention until her keen ear caught the sound of +Stephen's name. It was a part of her unhappiness that since her +broken engagement no one would ever allude to him, and she longed +to hear him mentioned, so that perchance she could get some +inkling of his movements. + +"I met Stephen to-night for the first time in a week," said Mr. +Wiley. "He kind o' keeps out o' my way lately. He's goin' to +drive his span into Portland tomorrow mornin' and bring Rufus +home from the hospital Sunday afternoon. The doctors think +they've made a success of their job, but Rufus has got to be +bandaged up a spell longer. Stephen is goin' to join the drive +Monday mornin' at the bridge here, so I'll get the latest news o' +the boy. Land! I'll be turrible glad if he gets out with his +eyesight, if it's only for Steve's sake. He's a turrible good +fellow, Steve is! He said something to-night that made me set +more store by him than ever. I told you I hedn't heard an unkind +word ag'in' Rose sence she come home from Boston, an' no more I +hev till this evenin: There was two or three fellers talkin' in +the post-office, an' they didn't suspicion I was settin' on the +steps outside the screen door. That Jim Jenkins, that Rose so +everlastin'ly snubbed at the tavern dance, spoke up, an' says he: +'This time last year Rose Wiley could 'a' hed the choice of any +man on the river, an' now I bet ye she can't get nary one.' + +"Steve was there, jest goin' out the door, with some bags o' +coffee an' sugar under his arm. + +"'I guess you're mistaken about that,' he says, speakin' up jest +like lightnin'; 'so long as Stephen Waterman's alive, Rose Wiley +can have him, for one; and that everybody's welcome to know.' + +"He spoke right out, loud an' plain, jest as if he was readin' +the Declaration of Independence. I expected the boys would +everlastin'ly poke fun at him, but they never said a word. I +guess his eyes flashed, for he come out the screen door, slammin' +it after him, and stalked by me as if he was too worked up to +notice anything or anybody. I didn't foiler him, for his long +legs git over the ground too fast for me, but thinks I, 'Mebbe +I'll hev some use for my lemonade-set after all.'" + +"I hope to the land you will," responded Mrs. Wiley, "for I'm +about sick o' movin' it round when I sweep under my bed. And I +shall be glad if Rose an' Stephen do make it up, for Wealthy Ann +Brooks's gossip is too much for a Christian woman to stand." + + + +HOUSEBREAKING + +Where was the pale Rose, the faded Rose, that crept noiselessly +down from her room, wanting neither to speak nor to be spoken to! +Nobody ever knew. She vanished forever, and in her place a thing +of sparkles and dimples flashed up the stairway and closed the +door softly. There was a streak of moonshine lying across the +bare floor, and a merry ghost, with dressing-gown held prettily +away from bare feet, danced a gay fandango among the yellow +moonbeams. There were breathless flights to the open window, and +kisses thrown in the direction of the River Farm. There were +impressive declamations at the looking-glass, where a radiant +creature pointed to her reflection and whispered, "Worthless +little pig, he loves you, after all!" + +Then, when quiet joy had taken the place of mad delight, there +was a swoop down upon the floor, an impetuous hiding of brimming +eyes in the white counterpane, and a dozen impassioned promises +to herself and to something higher than herself, to be a better +girl. + +The mood lasted, and deepened, and still Rose did not move. Her +heart was on its knees before Stephen's faithful love, his +chivalry, his strength. Her troubled spirit, like a frail boat +tossed about in the rapids, seemed entering a quiet harbor, where +there were protecting shores and a still, still evening star. +Her sails were all torn and drooping, but the harbor was in +sight, and the poor little weather-beaten craft could rest in +peace. + +A period of grave reflection now ensued,--under the bedclothes, +where one could think better. Suddenly an inspiration seized +her,--an inspiration so original, so delicious, and above all +so humble and praiseworthy, that it brought her head from her +pillow, and she sat bolt upright, clapping her hands like a +child. + +"The very thing!" she whispered to herself gleefully. "It will +take courage, but I'm sure of my ground after what he said before +them all, and I'll do it. Grandma in Biddeford buying church +carpets, Stephen in Portland--was ever such a chance?" + +The same glowing Rose came downstairs, two steps at a time, next +morning, bade her grandmother good-by with suspicious pleasure, +and sent her grandfather away on an errand which, with attendant +conversation, would consume half the day. Then bundles after +bundles and baskets after baskets were packed into the wagon,-- +behind the seat, beneath the seat, and finally under the +lap-robe. She gave a dramatic flourish to the whip, drove across +the bridge, went through Pleasant River village, and up the leafy +road to the little house, stared the "To Let" sign scornfully in +the eye, alighted, and ran like a deer through the aisles of +waving corn, past the kitchen windows, to the back door. + +"If he has kept the big key in the old place under the stone, +where we both used to find it, then he hasn't forgotten me--or +anything," thought Rose. + +The key was there, and Rose lifted it with a sob of gratitude. +It was but five minutes' work to carry all the bundles from the +wagon to the back steps, and another five to lead old Tom across +the road into the woods and tie him to a tree quite out of the +sight of any passer-by. + +When, after running back, she turned the key in the lock, her +heart gave a leap almost of terror, and she started at the sound +of her own footfall. Through the open door the sunlight streamed +into the dark room. She flew to tables and chairs, and gave a +rapid sweep of the hand over their surfaces. + +"He has been dusting here,--and within a few days, too," she +thought triumphantly. + +The kitchen was perfection, as she always knew it would be, with +one door opening to the shaded road and the other looking on the +river; windows, too, framing the apple-orchard and the elms. She +had chosen the furniture, but how differently it looked now that +it was actually in place! The tiny shed had piles of split wood, +with great boxes of kindlings and shavings, all in readiness for +the bride, who would do her own cooking. Who but Stephen would +have made the very wood ready for a woman's home-coming; and why +had he done so much in May, when they were not to be married +until August? Then the door of the bedroom was stealthily +opened, and here Rose sat down and cried for joy and shame and +hope and fear. The very flowered paper she had refused as too +expensive! How lovely it looked with the white chamber set! She +brought in her simple wedding outfit of blankets, bed-linen, and +counterpanes, and folded them softly in the closet; and then for +the rest of the morning she went from room to room, doing all +that could remain undiscovered, even to laying a fire in the new +kitchen stove. + +This was the plan. Stephen must pass the house on his way from +the River Farm to the bridge, where he was to join the +riverdrivers on Monday morning. She would be out of bed by the +earliest peep of dawn, put on Stephen's favorite pink calico, +leave a note for her grandmother, run like a hare down her side +of the river and up Stephen's, steal into the house, open blinds +and windows, light the fire, and set the kettle boiling. Then +with a sharp knife she would cut down two rows of corn, and thus +make a green pathway from the front kitchen steps to the road. +Next, the false and insulting "To Let" sign would be forcibly +tweaked from the tree and thrown into the grass. She would then +lay the table in the kitchen, and make ready the nicest breakfast +that two people ever sat down to. And oh, would two people sit +down to it; or would one go off in a rage and the other die of +grief and disappointment? + +Then, having done all, she would wait and palpitate, and +palpitate and wait, until Stephen came. Surely no property-owner +in the universe could drive along a road, observe his corn +leveled to the earth, his sign removed, his house open, and smoke +issuing from his chimney, without going in to surprise the rogue +and villain who could be guilty of such vandalism. + +And when he came in? + +Oh, she had all day Sunday in which to forecast, with mingled +dread and gladness and suspense, that all-important, all-decisive +first moment! All day Sunday to frame and unframe penitent +speeches. All day Sunday! Would it ever be Monday? If so, what +would Tuesday bring? Would the sun rise on happy Mrs. Stephen +Waterman of Pleasant River, or on miserable Miss Rose Wiley of +the Prier Neighborhood? + + + +THE DREAM ROOM + +Long ago, when Stephen was a boy of fourteen or fifteen, he had +gone with his father to a distant town to spend the night. After +an early breakfast next morning his father had driven off for a +business interview, and left the boy to walk about during his +absence. He wandered aimlessly along a quiet side street, and +threw himself down on the grass outside a pretty garden to amuse +himself as best he could. + +After a few minutes he heard voices, and, turning, peeped through +the bars of the gate in idle, boyish curiosity. It was a small +brown house; the kitchen door was open, and a table spread with a +white cloth was set in the middle of the room. There was a +cradle in a far corner, and a man was seated at the table as +though he might be waiting for his breakfast. + +There is a kind of sentiment about the kitchen in New England, a +kind of sentiment not provoked by other rooms. Here the farmer +drops in to spend a few minutes when he comes back from the barn +or field on an errand. Here, in the great, clean, sweet, +comfortable place, the busy housewife lives, sometimes rocking +the cradle, sometimes opening and shutting the oven door, +sometimes stirring the pot, darning stockings, paring vegetables, +or mixing goodies in a yellow bowl. The children sit on the +steps, stringing beans, shelling peas, or hulling berries; the +cat sleeps on the floor near the wood-box; and the visitor feels +exiled if he stays in sitting-room or parlor, for here, where the +mother is always busy, is the heart of the farm-house. + +There was an open back door to this kitchen, a door framed in +morning-glories, and the woman (or was she only girl?) standing +at the stove was pretty,--oh, so pretty in Stephen's eyes! His +boyish heart went out to her on the instant. She poured a cup of +coffee and walked with it to the table; then an unexpected, +interesting thing happened--something the boy ought not 'to +have seen, and never forgot. The man, putting out his hand to +take the cup, looked up at the pretty woman with a smile, and she +stooped and kissed him. + +Stephen was fifteen. As he looked, on the instant he became a +man, with a man's hopes, desires, ambitions. He looked eagerly, +hungrily, and the scene burned itself on the sensitive plate of +his young heart, so that, as he grew older, he could take the +picture out in the dark, from time to time, and look at it again. +When he first met Rose, he did not know precisely what she was to +mean to him; but before long, when he closed his eyes and the old +familiar picture swam into his field of vision, behold, by some +spiritual chemistry, the pretty woman's face had given place to +that of Rose! + +All such teasing visions had been sternly banished during this +sorrowful summer, and it was a thoughtful, sober Stephen who +drove along the road on this mellow August morning. The dust was +deep; the goldenrod waved its imperial plumes, making the humble +waysides gorgeous; the river chattered and sparkled till it met +the logs at the Brier Neighorhood, and then, lapsing into +silence, flowed steadily under them till it found a vent for its +spirits in the dashing and splashing of the falls. + +Haying was over; logging was to begin that day; then harvesting; +then wood-cutting; then eternal successions of plowing, sowing, +reaping, haying, logging, harvesting, and so on, to the endless +end of his days. Here and there a red or a yellow branch, +painted only yesterday, caught his eye and made him shiver. He +was not ready for winter; his heart still craved the summer it +had missed. + +Hello! What was that? Corn-stalks prone on the earth? Sign +torn down and lying flat in the grass? Blinds open, fire in the +chimney? + +He leaped from the wagon, and, hinging the reins to Alcestis +Crambry, said, "Stay right here out of sight, and don't you move +till I call you!" and striding up the green pathway, hung open +the kitchen door. + +A forest of corn waving in the doorway at the back, +morning-glories clambering round and round the window-frames, +table with shining white cloth, kettle humming and steaming, +something bubbling in a pan on the stove, fire throwing out sweet +little gleams of welcome through the open damper. All this was +taken in with one incredulous, rapturous twinkle of an eye; but +something else, too: Rose of all roses, Rose of the river, Rose +of the world, standing behind a chair, her hand pressed against +her heart, her lips parted, her breath coming and going! She was +glowing like a jewel, glowing with the extraordinary brilliancy +that emotion gives to some women. She used to be happy in a gay, +sparkling way, like the shallow part of the stream as it chotters +over white pebbles and bright sands. Now it was a broad, steady, +full happiness like the deeps of the river under the sun. + +"Don't speak, Stephen, till you hear what I have to say. It +takes a good deal of courage for a girl to do as I am doing; but +I want to show how sorry I am, and it's the only way." She was +trembling, and the words came faster and faster. "I've been +very wrong and foolish, and made you very unhappy, but I haven't +done what you would have hated most. I haven't been engaged to +Claude Merrill; he hasn't so much as asked me. I am here to beg +you to forgive me, to eat breakfast with me, to drive me to the +minister's and marry me quickly, quickly, before anything happens +to prevent us, and then to bring me home here to live all the +days of my life. Oh, Stephen dear, honestly, honestly, you haven't +lost anything in all this long, miserable summer. I've +suffered, too, and I'm better worth loving than I was. Will you +take me back?" + +Rose had a tremendous power of provoking and holding love, and +Stephen of loving. His was too generous a nature for revilings +and complaints and reproaches. + +The shores of his heart were strewn with the wreckage of the +troubled summer, but if the tide of love is high enough, it +washes such things out of remembrance. He just opened his arms +and took Rose to his heart, faults and all, with joy--and +gratitude; and she was as happy as a child who has escaped the +scolding it richly deserved, and who determines, for very +thankfulness' sake, never to be naughty again. + +"You don't know what you've done for me, Stephen," she whispered, +with her face hidden on his shoulder. "I was just a common +little prickly rosebush when you came along like a good gardener +and 'grafted in' something better; the something better was your +love, Stephen dear, and it's made everything different. The +silly Rose you were engaged to long ago has disappeared +somewhere; I hope you won't be able to find her under the new +leaves." + +"She was all I wanted," said Stephen. + +"You thought she was," the girl answered, "because you didn't +see the prickles, but you'd have felt them sometime. The old +Rose was a selfish thing, not good enough for you; the new Rose +is going to be your wife, and Rufus's sister, and your mother's +daughter, all in one." + +Then such a breakfast was spread as Stephen, in his sorry years +of bachelor existence, had forgotten could exist; but before he +broke his fast he ran out to the wagon and served the astonished +Alcestis with his wedding refreshments then and there, bidding +him drive back to the River Farm and bring him a package that lay +in the drawer of his shaving-stand, package placed there when hot +youth and love and longing had inspired him to hurry on the +marriage day. + +"There's an envelope, Alcestis," he cried, "a long envelope way, +way back in the corner, and a small box on top of it. Bring them +both, and my wallet too, and if you find them all and get them to +me safely you shall be bridesmaid and groomsman and best man and +usher and maid of honor at a wedding, in less than an hour! Off +with you! Drive straight and use the whip on Dolly!" + +When he reentered the kitchen, flushed with joy and excitement, +Rose put the various good things on the table and he almost +tremblingly took his seat, fearing that contact with the solid +wood might wake him from this entrancing vision. + +"I'd like to put you in your chair like a queen and wait on you," +he said with a soft boyish stammer; "but I am too dazed with +happiness to be of any use." + +"It's my turn to wait upon you, and I--Oh! how I love to have +you dazed," Rose answered. "I'll be at the table presently +myself; but we have been housekeeping only three minutes, and we +have nothing but the tin coffee-pot this morning, so I'll pour +the coffee from the stove." + +She filled a cup with housewifely care and brought it to +Stephen's side. As she set it down and was turning, she caught +his look,--a look so full of longing that no loving woman, +however busy, could have resisted it; then she stooped and kissed +him fondly, fervently. + +Stephen put his arm about her, and, drawing her down to his knee, +rested his head against her soft shoulder with a sigh of comfort, +like that of a tired child. He had waited for it ten years; and +at last the dream-room had come true. + + + + + +End of The Project Gutenberg Etext of Rose O' the River by Kate Douglas Wiggin + diff --git a/old/old/rorvr10.zip b/old/old/rorvr10.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..f3ef176 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/old/rorvr10.zip |
