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diff --git a/1033-0.txt b/1033-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..e94d123 --- /dev/null +++ b/1033-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,2850 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 1033 *** + +[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 THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 1033 *** |