The Project Gutenberg eBook of Rose O’ The River, by Kate Douglas Wiggin.

Published：2026-07-30 09:26:12 Source: magnetic blocks for 2 year olds under 10 dollars Author: Bouncy Balls

Contents

Illustrations

THE PINE AND THE ROSE

It was not long after sunrise, and Stephen Waterman, fresh from his dipin the river, had scrambled up the hillside from the hut in thealder-bushes where he had made his morning toilet.

An early ablution of this sort was not the custom of the farmers alongthe banks of the Saco, but the Waterman house was hardly a stone’s throwfrom the water, and there was a clear, deep swimming-hole in the WillowCove that would have tempted the busiest man, or the least cleanly, inYork 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.[Pg 2]

The immensity of the sea had always silenced and overawed him, left himcold in feeling. The river wooed him, caressed him, won his heart. Itwas just big enough to love. It was full of charms and changes, ofvarying moods and sudden surprises. Its voice stole in upon his ear witha melody far sweeter and more subtle than the boom of the ocean. Yet itwas not without strength, and when it was swollen with the freshets ofthe spring and brimming with the bounty of its sister streams, it coulddash 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 lovelinessof 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. Cradledin the heart of a great mountain-range, it pursued its gleaming[Pg 3] way,here lying silent in glassy lakes, there rushing into tinkling littlefalls, foaming great falls, and thundering cataracts. Scores of bridgesspanned its width, but no steamers flurried its crystal depths. Here andthere a rough little rowboat, tethered to a willow, rocked to and fro insome 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 clearwater, a fish carved in stone: here eels coiled in the muddy bottom ofsome pool; and there, under the deep shadows of the rocks, lay fat,sleepy bass, old, and incredibly wise, quite untempted by, and whollysuperior to, the rural fisherman’s worm.

The river lapped the shores of peaceful meadows; it flowed along banksgreen with maple, beech, sycamore, and birch; it fell tempestuously overdams and fought its way between rocky cliffs crowned with stately firs.It rolled past forests of pine and hemlock and spruce, now gentle, now[Pg 4]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 drawninto its cruel depths. Lashed into fury by the stony reefs that impededits progress, the river looked now sapphire, now gold, now white, nowleaden gray; but always it was hurrying, hurrying on its appointed wayto the sea.

After feasting his eyes and filling his heart with a morning draught ofbeauty, Stephen went in from the porch and, pausing at the stairway,called in stentorian tones: “Get up and eat your breakfast, Rufus! Theboys will be picking the side jams to-day, and I’m going down to work onthe logs. If you come along, bring your own pick-pole and peavey.” Then,going to the kitchen pantry, he collected, from the various shelves, apitcher of milk, a loaf of bread, half an apple-pie, and a bowl ofblueberries, and, with the easy methods of a household unswayed byfeminine rule,[Pg 5] moved toward a seat under an apple-tree and took hismorning meal in great apparent content. Having finished, and washed hisdishes with much more thoroughness than is common to unsuperintendedman, and having given Rufus the second call to breakfast with the vigorand acrimony that usually marks that unpleasant performance, he strodeto 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 fieldsthat had been lately mown, and there were glimpses of tasseling cornrising high to catch the sun. Far, far down on the opposite bank of theriver was the hint of a brown roof, and the tip of a chimney that sent aslender wisp of smoke into the clear air. Beyond this, and farther backfrom the water, the trees apparently hid a cluster of other chimneys,for thin spirals of smoke ascended here and there. The little brown roofcould[Pg 6] never have revealed itself to any but a lover’s eye; and thatdiscerned something even smaller, something like a pinkish speck, thatmoved hither and thither on a piece of greensward that sloped to thewaterside.

“She’s up!” Stephen exclaimed under his breath, his eyes shining, hislips smiling. His voice had a note of hushed exaltation about it, as if“she,” whoever she might be, had, in condescending to rise, conferred apriceless boon upon a waiting universe. If she were indeed a “up” (sohis tone implied), then the day, somewhat falsely heralded by thesunrise, had really begun, and the human race might pursue its appointedtasks, inspired and uplifted by the consciousness of her existence. Itmight properly be grateful for the fact of her birth; that she had grownto woman’s estate; and, above all, that, in common with the sun, thelark, the morning-glory, and other beautiful things of the early day,she was up and about her lovely, cheery, heart-warming business.

[Pg 7]The handful of chimneys and the smoke spirals rising here and thereamong the trees on the river-bank belonged to what was known as theBrier Neighborhood. There were only a few houses in all, scattered alonga side road leading from the river up to Liberty Centre. There were nogreat signs of thrift or prosperity, but the Wiley cottage, the only onenear the water, was neat and well cared for, and Nature had done herbest to conceal man’s indolence, poverty, or neglect.

Bushes of sweetbrier grew in fragrant little forests as tall as thefences. Clumps of wild roses sprang up at every turn, and over all thestone walls, as well as on every heap of rocks by the wayside, pricklyblackberry vines ran and clambered and clung, yielding fruit and thornsimpartially to the neighborhood children.

The pinkish speck that Stephen Waterman[Pg 8] had spied from his side of theriver was Rose Wiley of the Brier Neighborhood on the Edgewood side. Asthere was another of her name on Brigadier Hill, the Edgewood ministercalled one of them the climbing Rose and the other the brier Rose, orsometimes Rose of the river. She was well named, the pinkish speck. Shehad not only some of the sweetest attributes of the wild rose, but theparallel might have been extended as far as the thorns, for she hadwounded her scores,—hearts, be it understood, not hands. The woundingwas, on the whole, very innocently done; and if fault could be imputedanywhere, it might rightly have been laid at the door of the kind powerswho had made her what she was, since the smile that blesses a singleheart is always destined to break many more.

She had not a single silk gown, but she had what is far better, a figureto show off a cotton one. Not a brooch nor a pair[Pg 9] of earrings wasnumbered among her possessions, but any ordinary gems would have lookedrather dull and trivial when compelled to undergo comparison with herbright eyes. As to her hair, the local milliner declared it impossiblefor Rose Wiley to get an unbecoming hat; that on one occasion, being ina frolicsome mood, Rose had tried on all the headgear in the villageemporium,—children’s gingham “Shakers,” mourning bonnets for ageddames, men’s haying hats and visored caps,—and she proved superior toevery test, looking as pretty as a pink in the best ones and simplyravishing in the worst. In fact, she had been so fashioned and finishedby Nature that, had she been set on a revolving pedestal in ashow-window, the bystanders would have exclaimed, as each new charm cameinto view: “Look at her waist!” “See her shoulders!” “And her neck andchin!” “And her hair!” While the children, gazing with rapturedadmiration,[Pg 10] 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, yetit quite fails to explain, nevertheless, the secret of her power. Whenshe looked her worst the spell was as potent as when she looked herbest. Hidden away somewhere was a vital spark which warmed every one whocame in contact with it. Her lovely little person was a trifle belowmedium height, and it might as well be confessed that her soul, on themorning when Stephen Waterman saw her hanging out the clothes on theriver bank, was not large enough to be at all out of proportion; butwhen eyes and dimples, lips and cheeks, enslave the onlooker, the soulis seldom subjected to a close or critical scrutiny. Besides, Rose Wileywas a nice girl, neat as wax, energetic, merry, amiable, economical. Shewas a dutiful granddaughter to two of the most irritating old people inthe county; she[Pg 11] never patronized her pug-nosed, pasty-faced girlfriends; she made wonderful pies and doughnuts; and besides, smallsouls, 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 thewater; and on the other a sturdy pine tree, well rooted against wind andstorm. And the sturdy pine yearned for the wild rose; and the rose, sofar as it knew, yearned for nothing at all, certainly not for ruggedpine trees standing tall and grim in rocky soil. If, in its presentstage of development, it gravitated toward anything in particular, itwould have been a well-dressed white birch growing on an irreproachablelawn.

And the river, now deep, now shallow, now smooth, now tumultuous, nowsparkling in sunshine, now gloomy under clouds,[Pg 12] rolled on to theengulfing sea. It could not stop to concern itself with the pettycomedies and tragedies that were being enacted along its shores, else itwould never have reached its destination. Only last night, under a fullmoon, there had been pairs of lovers leaning over the rails of all thebridges along its course; but that was a common sight, like that of theardent couples sitting on its shady banks these summer days, lookingonly into each other’s eyes, but exclaiming about the beauty of thewater. Lovers would come and go, sometimes reappearing with successiveinstallments of loves in a way wholly mysterious to the river. Meantimeit had its own work to do and must be about it, for the side jams wereto 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 thelast wrinkle from her dimity counterpane, picked up a shred of corn-huskfrom the spotless floor under the bed, slapped a mosquito on thewindow-sill, removed all signs of murder with a moist towel, and beforerunning down to breakfast cast a frowning look at her pincushion.Almira, otherwise “Mite,” Shapley had been in her room the afternoonbefore 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, whileshe was extricating one from her clothing, there had been an alarm offire, Rose would have stuck the pin in its appointed place in thedesign, at the risk of losing her life.[Pg 14]

Entering the kitchen with her light step, she brought the morningsunshine with her. The old people had already engaged in differences ofopinion, but they commonly suspended open warfare in her presence. Therewere the usual last things to be done for breakfast, offices thatbelonged to her as her grandmother’s assistant. She took yesterday’ssoda biscuits out of the steamer where they were warming and softening;brought an apple pie and a plate of seed cakes from the pantry; settledthe coffee with a piece of dried fish skin and an egg shell; andtransferred some fried potatoes from the spider to a covered dish.

“Did you remember the meat, grandpa? We’re all out,” she said, as shebegan buttoning a stiff collar around his reluctant neck.

“Remember? Land, yes! I wish’t I ever could forgit anything! The butchersays he’s ’bout tired o’ travelin’ over the country lookin’ for crittersto kill, but if he[Pg 15] finds anything he’ll be up along in the course of aweek. 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 sportstarched collars in this life on account o’ you and your gran’motherbein’ so chock full o’ style; but I hope to the Lord I shan’t have towear ’em in another world!”

“You won’t,” his wife responded with the snap of a dish towel, “or ifyou do, they’ll wilt with the heat.”

Rose smiled, but the soft hand with which she tied the neck-cloth aboutthe old man’s withered neck pacified his spirit, and he smiled knowinglyback at her as she took her seat at the breakfast table spread near theopen kitchen door. She was a dazzling Rose, and, it is to be feared, awasted one, for there was no one present to observe her clean pinkcalico and the still more subtle note struck in the green ribbon[Pg 16] whichwas tied round her throat,—the ribbon that formed a sort of calyx, outof which sprang the flower of her face, as fresh and radiant as if ithad bloomed that morning.

“Give me my coffee turrible quick,” said Mr. Wiley; “I must be down thebridge ’fore they start dog-warpin’ the side jam.”

“I notice you’re always due at the bridge on churnin’ days,” remarkedhis 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 jestlike Rose’s jackstraws; I never see’em so turrible ricked up in all myexper’ence; an’ Lije Dennett don’ know no more ’bout pickin’ a jam thanCooper’s cow. Turrible sot in his ways, too; can’t take a mite ofadvice. I was tellin’ him how to go to work on that bung that’s formedbetween the gre’t gray rock an’ the shore,—the awfullest place to bungthat there is between this an’ Biddeford,—and says he: ‘Look[Pg 17] here,I’ve be’n boss on this river for twelve year, an’ I’ll be doggoned ifI’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, ’saysI. An’ then I come away, for my tongue’s so turrible spry an’ sarcusticthat I knew if I stopped any longer I should stir up strife. There’ssome folks that’ll set on addled aigs year in an’ year out, as if therewan’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 ownbusiness,” observed the still sententious Mrs. Wiley, as she speared asoda-biscuit with her fork.

“Mindin’ your own business is a turrible selfish trade,” responded herhusband loftily. “If your neighbor is more ignorant than what youare,—partic’larly if he’s as ignorant as Cooper’s cow,—you’d ought,[Pg 18]as a Kennebec man an’ a Christian, to set him on the right track, thoughit’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 thefrequency with which these words appeared in his conversation. Therewere not wanting those of late who dubbed him Uncle Ananias, for reasonstoo obvious to mention. After a long, indolent, tolerably truthful, anduseless life, he had, at seventy-five, lost sight of the dividing linebetween fact and fancy, and drew on his imagination to such an extentthat he almost staggered himself when he began to indulge inreminiscence. He was a feature of the Edgewood “drive,” being alwayspresent during the five or six days that it was in progress, sometimessitting on the river-bank, sometimes leaning over the bridge, sometimesreclining against the butt-end of a huge log, but always chewing[Pg 19]tobacco and expectorating to incredible distances as he criticized anddamned impartially all the expedients in use at the particular moment.

“I want to stay down by the river this afternoon,” said Rose. “Ever somany of the girls will be there, and all my sewing is done up. Ifgrandpa will leave the horse for me, I’ll take the drivers’ lunch tothem at noon, and bring the dishes back in time to wash them beforesupper.”

“I suppose you can go, if the rest do,” said her grandmother, “thoughit’s an awful lazy way of spendin’ an afternoon. When I was a girl therewas 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[Pg 20] reply. “Eben Brooks an’ Richard Bean got homeyesterday with their doctors’ diplomas in their pockets. Mrs. Brookssays Eben stood forty-nine in a class o’ fifty-five, an’ seemedconsid’able proud of him; an’ I guess it is the first time he ever stoodanywheres but at the foot. I tell you when these fifty-five new doctorsgit scattered over the country there’ll be consid’able many folkskeepin’ house under ground. Dick Bean’s goin’ to stop a spell with Rufean’ 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, “butSteve’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 livedon the Kennebec there ain’t what can rightly be called any turriblechances on the Saco.”

“He’d better be ’tendin’ to his farm,” objected Mrs. Wiley.

[Pg 21]“His hay is all in,” Rose spoke up quickly, “and he only helps on theriver when the farm work isn’t pressing. Besides, though it’s all playto 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 jestcan’t keep away from the logs. There’s some that can’t. When I firstmoved here from Gard’ner, where the climate never suited me”—

“The climate of any place where you hev regular work never did an’ neverwill suit you,” remarked the old man’s wife; but the interruptionreceived no comment: such mistaken views of his character were toofrequent to make any impression.

“As I was sayin’, Rose,” he continued, “when we first moved here fromGard’ner, we lived neighbor to the Watermans. Steve an’ Rufus was littleboys then, always playin’ with a couple o’ wild cousins o’ theirn,consid’able older. Steve would[Pg 22] scare his mother pretty nigh to deathstealin’ away to the mill to ride on the ‘carriage,’ ’side o’ the logthat 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 hisfather throwed away on him has changed him much.” And with thisobservation 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 inthe 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’ outthe winders and seein’ her boys slippin’ between the logs an’ gittin’their daily dousin’.[Pg 23] She couldn’t understand it, an’ there’s a heap o’things women-folks never do an’ never can understand,—jest because theyair 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’ ortiger-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-driversspring and fall, reg’lar. He couldn’t do nothin’ but shin up an’ downthe rocks after hammers an’ hatchets an’ ropes, but he was turriblepleased with his job. ‘Stepanfetchit,’ they used to call him themdays,—Stephanfetchit Waterman.”

“Good name for him yet,” came in acid tones from the sink. “He’s stillsteppin’[Pg 24] an’ fetchin’, only it’s Rose that’s doin’ the drivin’ now.”

“I’m not driving anybody, that I know of,” answered Rose, withheightened color, but with no loss of her habitual self-command.

“Then, when he graduated from errants,” went on the crafty old man, whoknew that when breakfast ceased, churning must begin, “Steve used to getseventy-five cents a day helpin’ clear up the river—if you can callthis here silv’ry streamlet a river. He’d pick off a log here an’ therean’ 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 anykind of a boss, an’ hed be’n trained on the Kennebec, he’d ’a’ made aturrible 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 asridin’ logs from his house down to ourn, dark nights.”[Pg 25]

“Seein’ as how Steve built ye a nice pig pen last month, ’pears to meyou might have a good word for him now an’ then, mother,” remarked OldKennebec, reaching for his second piece of pie.

“I wa’n’t a mite deceived by that pig pen, no more’n I was by JedTowle’s hen coop, nor Ivory Dunn’s well-curb, nor Pitt Packard’sshed-steps. If you hed ever kep’ up your buildin’s yourself, Rose’sbeaux 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 inspeckfolks’ 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 horsedoesn’t revolve under you, and go sideways at the same time that it isgoing forwards.”[Pg 26]

“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 tolet the logs float, so we used to build a flume, an’ the logs would whizdown like arrers shot from a bow. The boys used to collect by the sideo’ that there flume to see me ride a log down, an’ I’ve watched ’em dropin a dead faint when I spun by the crowd; but land! you can’t drowndsome 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’ theKennebec an’ never lost my head. I remember well the year o’ the gre’tfreshet, I rid a log from”—

“There, there, father, that’ll do,” said Mrs. Wiley, decisively. “I’llput the cream in the churn, an’ you jest work off some o’ your steam bybringin’ the butter for us afore you start for the bridge. It don’t dono good to brag afore your own women-folks; work goes consid’ablebetter’n stories[Pg 27] at every place ’cept the loafers’ bench at thetavern.”

And the baffled raconteur, who had never done a piece of work cheerfullyin his life, dragged himself reluctantly to the shed, where, beforelong, one could hear him moving the dasher up and down sedately to hisfavorite “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 PleasantRiver and Edgewood, the glassy mirror of the Saco broadens suddenly,sweeping over the dam in a luminous torrent. Gushes of pure amber markthe middle of the dam, with crystal and silver at the sides, and fromthe seething vortex beneath the golden cascade the white spray dashes upin fountains. In the crevices and hollows of the rocks the mad waterchurns 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.[Pg 29]

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 considerableexcitement at the bridge, and a goodly audience of villagers from bothsides of the river. There were some who never came, some who had nofancy for the sight, some to whom it was an old story, some who were toobusy, but there were many to whom it was the event of events, anever-ending source of interest.

Above the fall, covering the placid surface of the river, thousands oflogs lay quietly “in boom” until the “turning out” process, on the lastday of the drive, should release them and give them their chance ofdisplay, their brief moment of notoriety, their opportunity ofinteresting, amusing, exciting, and exasperating the onlookers by theirantics.

Heaps of logs had been cast up on the rocks below the dam, where theylay in hopeless confusion, adding nothing, however,[Pg 30] to the problem ofthe moment, for they too bided their time. If they had possessed wisdom,discretion, and caution, they might have slipped gracefully over thefalls and, steering clear of the hidden ledges (about which it wouldseem they must have heard whispers from the old pine trees along theriver), have kept a straight course and reached their destinationwithout costing the Edgewood Lumber Company a small fortune. Or, if theyhad inclined toward a jolly and adventurous career, they could havejoined one of the various jams or “bungs,” stimulated by the thoughtthat any one of them might be a key-log, holding for a time the entiremass in its despotic power. But they had been stranded early in thegame, and, after lying high and dry for weeks, would be picked off oneby one and sent down-stream.

In the tumultuous boil, the foaming hubbub and flurry at the foot of thefalls, one enormous peeled log wallowed up and down[Pg 31] like a hugerhinoceros, greatly pleasing the children by its clumsy cavortings. Someconflict of opposing forces kept it ever in motion, yet never set itfree. Below the bridge were always the real battle-grounds, the scenesof 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 stormyafternoon in spring. A jam had broken under the men, and Stephen, havingtaken too great risks, had been caught on the moving mass, and, leapingfrom log to log, his only chance for life had been to find a footing onGray Rock,[Pg 32] which was nearer than the shore.

Rufus was ill at the time, and Mrs. Waterman so anxious and nervous thatprocessions of boys had to be sent up to the River Farm, giving thefrightened mother the latest bulletins of her son’s welfare. Luckily,the river was narrow just at the Gray Rock, and it was a quite possibletask, though no easy one, to lash two ladders together and make a narrowbridge on which the drenched and shivering man could reach the shore.There were loud cheers when Stephen ran lightly across the slenderpathway that led to safety—ran so fast that the ladders had scarce timeto bend beneath his weight. He had certainly “taken chances,” but whendid he not do that? The logger’s life is one of “moving accidents byflood and field,” and Stephen welcomed with wildqq exhilaration everyhazard that came in his path. To him there was never a dull hour fromthe moment that the first notch was cut in the tree (for he sometimesjoined the boys in the lumber camp just for a frolic) till the later onewhen the hewn log reached its final destination. He knew nothing of“tooling” a four-in-hand through narrow lanes or crowdedthoroughfares,—nothing of guiding a horse over the hedges and throughthe pitfalls of a stiff bit of hunting country; his steed was therearing, plunging, kicking log, and he rode it like a river god.

[Pg 33]The crowd loves daring, and so it welcomed Stephen with braves, but itknew, as he knew, that he was only doing his duty by the Company, onlyshowing the Saco that man was master, only keeping the old Waterman namein good repute.

“Ye can’t drownd some folks,” Old Kennebec had said, as he stood in agroup on the shore; “not without you tie sand-bags to’em an’ drop ’em inthe Great Eddy. I’m the same kind; I remember when I was stranded onjest sech a rock in the Kennebec, only they left me there all night fordead, an’ I had to swim the rapids when it come daylight.”

“We’re well acquainted with that rock and them rapids,” exclaimed one ofthe river-drivers, to the delight of the company.

Rose had reason to remember Stephen’s adventure, for he had clamberedup[Pg 34] the bank, smiling and blushing under the hurrahs of the boys, and,coming to the wagon where she sat waiting for her grandfather, hadseized 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; perhapsbecause this was to be a red-letter day, and sometime, when he had afree moment,—sometime before supper, when he and Rose were sittingapart from the others, watching the logs,—he intended again to ask herto marry him. This thought trembled in him, stirring the deeps of hisheart like a great wave, almost sweeping him off his feet when he heldit too close and let it have full sway. It would be the fourth time thathe had asked Rose this question of all questions, but there was noperceptible difference in his excitement, for there was always thepossible chance that she might change her mind and say yes, if only for[Pg 35]variety. Wanting a thing continuously, unchangingly, unceasingly, yearafter year, he thought,—longing to reach it as the river longed toreach 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 bosscame 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 aredetermined not to move. Ike Billings, that’s the han’somest andfluentest all-round swearer on the Saco, has tried his best on the sidejam. He’s all out o’ cuss-words and there hain’t a log budged. Now, stido’ dog-warpin’ this afternoon, an’ lettin’ the oxen haul off all themstubborn logs by main force, we’re goin’ to ask you to set up on thebank 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 methat don’t melt like[Pg 36] wax and jest float right off same as the logs dowhen they get into quiet, sunny water.’”

Rose blushed and laughed, and drove up the hill to Mite Shapley’s, whereshe 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, amile down river, but for several years Mrs. Wiley had furnished the noonmeal, sending it down piping hot on the stroke of twelve. The boysalways said that up or down the whole length of the Saco there was nosuch cooking as the Wileys’, and much of this praise was earned byRose’s serving. It was the old grandmother who burnished the tin platesand dippers till they looked like silver; for crotchety andsharp-tongued as she was—she never allowed Rose to spoil her hands withsoft soap and sand: but it was Rose who planned and packed, Rose whohemmed squares of old white tablecloths and sheets to line the basketsand keep[Pg 37] things daintily separate, Rose, also, whose tarts and cakeswere the pride and admiration of church sociables and sewing societies.

Where could such smoking pots of beans be found? A murmur of ecstaticapproval ran through the crowd when the covers were removed. Pieces ofsweet home-fed pork glistened like varnished mahogany on the top of thebeans, and underneath were such deeps of fragrant juice as come onlyfrom slow fires and long, quiet hours in brick ovens. Who else couldsteam 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-applepies! Could such candied lower crusts be found elsewhere, or moredelectable filling? Or such rich, nutty doughnuts?—doughnuts that hadspurned the hot fat which is the ruin of so many, and risen from itswaves like golden-brown Venuses.[Pg 38]

“By the great seleckmen!” ejaculated Jed Towle, as he swallowed hisfourth, “I’d like to hev a wife, two daughters, and four sisters likethem Wileys, and jest set still on the river-bank an’ hev ’em cookvictuals for me. I’d hev nothin’ to wish for then but a mouth as big asthe Saco’s.”

“And I wish this custard pie was the size o’ Bonnie Eagle Pond,” saidIke Billings. “I’d like to fall into the middle of it and eat my wayout!”

[Pg 39]

“Look at that bunch o’ Chiny asters tied on t’ the bail o’ thatbiscuit-pail!” said Ivory Dunn. “That’s the girl’s doin’s, you betwomen-folks don’t seem to make no bo’quets after they git married. Let’sdivide ’em up an’ wear ’em drivin’ this afternoon; mebbe they’ll ketchthe eye so’t our rags won’t show so bad. Land! it’s lucky my hundreddays is about up! If I don’t git home soon, I shall be arrested forgoin’ without clo’es. I set up’bout all night puttin’ these blue patchesin my pants an’ tryin’ to piece together a couple of old red-flannelshirts to make one whole one. That’s the worst o’ drivin’ in theseplaces where the pretty girls make a habit of comin’ down to the bridgeto see the fun. You hev to keep rigged up jest so stylish; you can’t gitno chance at the rum bottle, an’ you even hev to go a leetle mite lighton swearin’.”

“BLASPHEMIOUS SWEARIN’”

“Steve Waterman’s an awful nice feller,” exclaimed Ivory Dunn just then.Stephen had been looking intently across the river, watching theShapleys’ side door, from which Rose might issue at any moment; and atthis 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 yearround,” 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. “Youfellers that belonged[Pg 41] to the old drive remember Pretty Quick Watermanwell enough? Steve’s mother brought him up.”

Yes; most of them remembered the Waterman twins, Stephen’s cousins, nowboth dead,—Slow Waterman, so moderate in his steps and actions that youhad to fix a landmark somewhere near him to see if he moved; and PrettyQuick, 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 cutoff the same piece o’ goods as the other Watermans. Great hemlock! buthe kep’ a cussin’ dictionary, Pretty Quick did! Whenever he heard anynew words he must ’a’ writ ’em down, an’ then studied ’em all up in thewinter-time, to use in the spring drive.”

“Swearin’ ’s a habit that hed ought to be practiced with turriblecaution,” observed old Mr. Wiley, when the drivers had finished[Pg 42]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 upa jam in good style ’thout a few words that’s too strong for the infantclasses 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’ thekey-log in a jam, he ain’t in no place for blasphemious swearin’; jest alittle easy, perlite ‘damn’ is ’bout all he can resk, if he don’t want togit drownded an’ hev his ghost walkin’ the river-banks till kingdomcome.

“You an’ I, Long, was the only ones that seen Pretty Quick go, wa’n’twe?” continued Old Kennebec, glancing at Long Abe Dennett (cousin toShort Abe), who lay on his back in the grass, the smoke-wreaths risingfrom his pipe, and the steel spikes in his heavy, calked-sole bootsshining in the sun.[Pg 43]

“There was folks on the bridge,” Long answered, “but we was the onlyones near enough to see an’ hear. It was so onexpected, an’ so soonover, that them as was watchin’ upstream, where the men was to work onthe 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 allerssaid it was rum an’ bravadder that killed Pretty Quick Waterman thatday. The boys hedn’t give him a ‘dare’ that he hedn’t took up. He seemedlike he was possessed, an’ the logs was the same way; they was fairlywild, leapin’ around in the maddest kind o’ water you ever see. Theriver 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 washid in the bushes,” interpolated Mr. Wiley.

“Like as not; that was his failin’. Well,[Pg 44] most o’ the boys were on theother side o’ the river, workin’ above the bridge, an’ the boss hedcalled Pretty Quick to come off an’ leave the jam till mornin’, whenthey’d get horses an’ dog-warp it off, log by log. But when the boss gotout o’ sight, Pretty Quick jest stood right still, swingin’ his axe, an’blasphemin’ so ’t would freeze your blood, vowin’ he wouldn’t move tillthe logs did, if he stayed there till the crack o’ doom. Jest then agreat, ponderous log that hed be’n churnin’ up an’ down in the falls fora week, got free an’ come blunderin’ an’ thunderin’ down-river. Land! itwas chockfull o’ water, an’ looked ’bout as big as a church! It comestraight along, butt-end foremost, an’ struck that jam, full force, so’tevery log in it shivered. There was a crack,—the crack o’ doom, sureenough, 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,[Pg 45] an’ in a second Pretty Quickwas whirlin’ in the white water. He never riz,—at least where we couldsee 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 rumnor swearin’, Steve ain’t. He knows Pretty Quick’s ways shortened hismother’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 astory 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 hisdirections were followed with a will.

“As I was sayin’,” continued the old[Pg 46] man, peacefully, “I’ve seen thingson the Kennebec that wouldn’t happen on a small river, an’ I’ve be’n inturrible places an’ taken turrible resks—resks that would ’a’ turned aSaco River man’s hair white; but them is the times when my wits work thequickest. I remember once I was smokin’ my pipe when a jam broke underme. ’T was a small jam, or what we call a small jam on theKennebec,—only about three hundred thousand pine logs. The first thingI knowed, I was shootin’ back an’ forth in the b’ilin’ foam, hangin’ ont’ 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 allskin, bones, an’ nerve. The Comp’ny wouldn’t[Pg 47] 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, myappetite failed me, an’ I wa’n’t wuth a day’s wages. I’d learnedengineerin’ when I was a boy, an’ I thought I’d try runnin’ on the roada spell, but it didn’t suit my constitution. My kidneys ain’t turriblestrong, an’ the doctors said I’d have Bright’s disease if I didn’t gitsome 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 kindso’ labor. Some of ’em don’t suit my liver, some disagrees with mystomach, and the rest of ’em has vibrations; so here I set, high an’[Pg 48]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 inthe 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 bethere in a jiffy!” for the luncheon hour had flown, and the work of theafternoon was waiting for them. “You make a chalk-mark where you leftoff, Mr. Wiley, an’ we’ll hear the rest to-morrer; only don’t you forgitnothin’! Remember’t was the Kennebec you was talkin’ about.”

“I will, indeed,” responded the old man. “As I was sayin’ wheninterrupted, I may be a stranded log, but I’m proud that the mark o’ theGard’ner Lumber Comp’ny is on me, so’t when I git to my journey’s endthey’ll know where I belong and send me back to the Kennebec. Before I’msawed[Pg 49] up I’d like to forgit this triflin’ brook in the sight of agood-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 allwas activity. The men ran hither and thither like ants, gathering theirtools. There were some old-fashioned pick-poles, straight, heavy leverswithout any “dog,” and there were modern pick-poles and peaveys, forevery river has its favorite equipment in these things. There was nodynamite in those days to make the stubborn jams yield, and the dog-warpwas in general use. Horses or oxen, sometimes a line of men, stood onthe river-bank. A long rope was attached by means of a steel spike toone log after another, and it was dragged from the tangled mass.Sometimes, after unloading[Pg 51] the top logs, those at the bottom would riseand make the task easier; sometimes the work would go on for hours withno perceptible progress, and Mr. Wiley would have opportunity to tellthe bystanders of a “turrible jam” on the Kennebec that had cost theLumber Company ten thousand dollars to break.

There would be great arguments on shore, among the villagers as well asamong the experts, as to the particular log which might be a key to theposition. The boss would study the problem from various standpoints, andthe drivers themselves would pass from heated discussion into longconsultations.

“They’re paid by the day,” Old Kennebec would philosophize to thedoctor; “an’ when they’re consultin’ they don’t hev to be doggin’, whichis a turrible sight harder work.”

Rose had created a small sensation, on one occasion, by pointing out tothe under boss the key-log in a jam. She was past[Pg 52] mistress of thepretty game of jackstraws, much in vogue at that time. The delicatelittle lengths of polished wood or bone were shaken together and emptiedon the table. Each jackstraw had one of its ends fashioned in the shapeof some sort of implement,—a rake, hoe, spade, fork, or mallet. All thepieces were intertwined by the shaking process, and they lay as theyfell, in a hopeless tangle. The task consisted in taking a tinypick-pole, scarcely bigger than a match, and with the bit of curved wireon the end lifting off the jackstraws one by one without stirring thepile or making it tremble. When this occurred, you gave place to youropponent, who relinquished his turn to you when ill fortune descendedupon him, the game, which was a kind of river-driving and jam-picking inminiature, being decided by the number of pieces captured and theirvalue. No wonder that the under boss asked Rose’s advice as to thekey-log. She had a fairy’s hand,[Pg 53] and her cunning at deciding the piecesto be moved, and her skill at extricating and lifting them from theheap, were looked upon in Edgewood as little less than supernatural. Itwas 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 loverin bringing his head very close to that of his beloved adversary. Thejackstraws have to be watched with a hawk’s eagerness, since the“trembling” can be discerned only by a keen eye; but there were momentswhen Stephen was willing to risk the loss of a battle if he could watchRose’s drooping eyelashes, the delicate down on her pink cheek, and thefeathery curls that broke away from her hair.

He was looking at her now from a distance, for she and Mite Shapley wereassisting Jed Towle to pile up the tin plates and tie the tin dipperstogether. Next she peered into one of the bean-pots, and[Pg 54] seemed pleasedthat there was still something in its depths; then she gathered thefragments neatly together in a basket, and, followed by her friend,clambered down the banks to a shady spot where the Boomshers, otherwiseknown as the Crambry family, were “lined up” expectantly.

It is not difficult to find a single fool in any community, howeversmall; but a family of fools is fortunately somewhat rarer. Everycounty, however, can boast of one fool-family, and York County isalways in the fashion, with fools as with everything else. The unique,much-quoted, and undesirable Boomshers could not be claimed asindigenous to the Saco valley, for this branch was an offshoot of astill larger tribe inhabiting a distant township. Its beginnings wereshrouded in mystery. There was a French-Canadian ancestor somewhere, anda Gipsy or Indian grandmother. They had always intermarried from timeimmemorial. When one of the[Pg 55] selectmen of their native place had beenasked why the Boomshers always married cousins, and why the habit wasnot discouraged, he replied that he really didn’t know; he s’vposed theyfelt 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 theactual name was French and could not be coped with by Edgewood orPleasant River, being something quite as impossible to spell as topronounce. As the family had lived for the last few years somewhere nearthe Killick Cranberry Meadows, they were called—and completelydescribed in the calling—the Crambry fool-family. A talented and muchtraveled gentleman who once stayed over night at the Edgewood tavern,proclaimed it his opinion that Boomsher had been gradually corruptedfrom Beaumarchais. When he wrote the word on his visiting card andshowed it to Mr. Wiley, Old Kennebec had replied, that in the judgmentof a man who had lived in[Pg 56] large places and seen a turrible lot o’ life,such a name could never have been given either to a Christian or aheathen family,—that the way in which the letters was thrown togetherinto it, and the way in which they was sounded when read out loud, wasentirely 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 wellenough for’em an’ a sight easier to speak.

Stephen knew a good deal about the Crambrys, for he passed theirso-called habitation in going to one of his wood-lots. It was only amonth before that he had found them all sitting outside theirbroken-down fence, surrounded by decrepit chairs, sofas, tables,bedsteads, bits of carpet, and stoves.

“What’s the matter?” he called out from his wagon.[Pg 57] “There ain’t nothin’the matter,” said Alcestis Crambry. “Father’s dead, an we’re dividin’ upthe furnerchure.”

Alcestis was the pride of the Crambrys, and the list of his attainmentsused often to be on his proud father’s lips. It was he who was thelargest, “for his size,” in the family; he who could tell his brothersPaul and Arcadus “by their looks;” he who knew a sour apple from a sweetone the minute he bit it; he who, at the early age of ten, was brightenough 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 wellremembered his first day at the village seat of learning. Reports ofwhat took place in this classic temple from day to day may have beenwafted to the dull ears of the boy, who was not thought ready for schooluntil he had attained the ripe age of twelve. It may even have been[Pg 58]that specific rumors of the signs, symbols, and hieroglyphics used ineducational institutions had reached him in the obscurity of hiscranberry meadows. At all events, when confronted by the alphabet chart,whose huge black capitals were intended to capture the wandering eyes ofthe infant class, Alcestis exhibited unusual, almost unnatural,excitement.

“That is ‘A,’ my boy,” said the teacher genially, as she pointed to thefirst character on the chart.

“Good God, is that ‘A’!” exclaimed Alcestis, sitting down heavily onthe nearest bench. And neither teacher nor scholars could discoverwhether he was agreeably surprised or disappointed in theletter,—whether he had expected, if he ever encountered it, to find itwrithing in coils on the floor of a cage, or whether it simply bore noresemblance to the ideal already established in his mind.

Mrs. Wiley had once tried to make[Pg 59] something of Mercy, the oldestdaughter of the family, but at the end of six weeks she announced that agirl who couldn’t tell whether the clock was going “forrards orbackwards,” and who rubbed a pocket handkerchief as long as she did asheet, would be no help in her household.

The Crambrys had daily walked the five or six miles from their home tothe Edgewood bridge during the progress of the drive, not only for thesocial and intellectual advantages to be gained from the companypresent, but for the more solid compensation of a good meal. They alladored Rose, partly because she gave them food, and partly because shewas sparkling and pretty and wore pink dresses that caught their dulleyes.

The afternoon proved a lively one. In the first place, one of theyounger men slipped into the water between two logs, part of a lotchained together waiting to[Pg 60] be let out of the boom. The weight of themass higher up and the force of the current wedged him in rathertightly, and when he had been “pried” out he declared that he felt likean 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 timethe “bung” that reached from the shore to Waterman’s Ledge (the rockwhere Pretty Quick met his fate) was broken up, and the logs thatcomposed it were started down river. There remained now only the greatside-jam at Gray Rock. This had been allowed to grow, gathering logs asthey drifted past, thus making higher water and a stronger current onthe other side of the rock, and allowing an easier passage for the logsat that point.

All was excitement now, for, this particular piece of work accomplished,the boom above the falls would be “turned out,” and[Pg 61] the river wouldonce more be clear and clean at the Edgewood bridge.

Small boys, perching on the rocks with their heels hanging, hands andmouths full of red Astrakhan apples, cheered their favorites to theecho, while the drivers shouted to one another and watched the signs andsignals 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 difficultproblem, for the rocky river-bed held many a snare and pitfall. Therewas a certain ledge under the water, so artfully placed that every logstriking 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 thismornin’,” grumbled Old Kennebec to Alcestis Crambry, who was always hismost loyal and attentive listener. “But he wouldn’t take[Pg 62] no advice, notif Pharaoh nor Boat nor Herod nor Nicodemus come right out o’ the Biblean’ give it to him. The logs air contrary to-day. Sometimes they’ll goalong as easy as an old shoe, an’ other times they’ll do nothin’ butbung, bung, bung! There’s a log nestlin’ down in the middle o’ that jamthat 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 everhear tell o’ George the Third, King of England, Alcestis, or ain’t heknown over to the crambry medders? Well, once upon a time men used to gothrough the forests over here an’ slash a mark on the trunks o’ thebiggest trees. That was the royal sign, as you might say, an’ meant thatthe tree was to be taken over to England to make masts an’ yard-arms forthe King’s ships. What made me think of it now is that the King’s markwas an arrer, an’ it’s an arrer that’s on that there log I’m showin’ ye.Well,[Pg 63] sir, I seen it fust at Milliken’s Mills a Monday. It was introuble 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 goanywheres without gittin’ into difficulties. You can yank it out an’ setit afloat, an’ before you hardly git your doggin’ iron off of it, it’llbe snarled up agin in some new place. From the time it’s chopped down tothe day it gets to Saco, it costs the Comp’ny ’bout ten times its peskyvaller as lumber. Now they’ve sent over to Benson’s for a team ofhorses, an’ I bate ye they can’t git ’em. I wish I was the boss on thisriver, 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 backa piece an’ git the pipe out o’ my coat pocket. I guess nothin’ ain’tgoin’ to happen for a few minutes.”

[Pg 64]Thesurmise about the horses, unlike most of Old Kennebec’s, proved tobe 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, andfive of the drivers, standing on the river-bank, attempted to drag itfrom its intrenched position. It refused to yield the fraction of aninch. Rufus and Stephen joined the five men, and the augmented crew ofseven were putting all their strength on the rope when a cry went upfrom the watchers on the bridge. The “dog” had loosened suddenly, andthe men were flung violently to the ground. For a second they werestunned both by the surprise and by the shock of the blow, but in thesame moment the cry of the crowd swelled louder. Alcestis Crambry hadstolen, all unnoticed, to the rope and had attempted to use his feeblepowers for the common good. When then blow came he fell backward, and,making no effort to control the situation, slid over the bank and intothe water.

[Pg 65]The other Crambrys, not realizing the danger, laughed, audibly, butthere was no jeering from the bridge.

Stephen had seen Alcestis slip, and in the fraction of a moment hadtaken off his boots and was coasting down the slippery rocks behind himin a twinkling he was in the water, almost as soon as the boy himself.

“Doggoned idjut!” exclaimed Old Kennebec, tearfully. “Wuth the hull foolfamily! If I hedn’t ’a’ be’n so old, I’d ’a’ jumped in myself, for youcan’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, betterstill, the luck that follows the witless. He was carried swiftly downthe current; but, only fifty feet away, a long, slender, log, wedgedbetween two low rocks on the shore, jutted out over the water, almosttouching its surface. The boy’s clothes were admirably[Pg 66] adapted to thesituation, being full of enormous rents. In some way the end of the logcaught in the rags of Alcestis’s coat and held him just seconds enoughto 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 particularlybad place for a landing, and there was nothing to do but to lower ropesand drag the drenched men to the high ground above.

Alcestis came to his senses in ten or fifteen minutes, and seemed asbright as usual: with a kind of added swagger at being the centralfigure in a dramatic situation.

“I wonder you hedn’t stove your brains out, when you landed so turriblesuddent 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,” respondedAlcestis; a cryptic remark which so puzzled Old Kennebec that he musedover it for some hours.

HEARTS AND OTHER HEARTS

Stephen had brought a change of clothes, as he had a habit of beingducked once at least during the day; and since there was a halt in theproceedings and no need of his services for an hour or two, he foundRose and walked with her to a secluded spot where they could watch thelogs 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 shouldI be, if I could have let him die.”[Pg 68]

Rose regarded this strange point of view for a moment, and then silentlyacquiesced in it. She was constantly doing this, and she often felt thather mental horizon broadened in the act; but she could not be sure thatStephen grew any dearer to her because of his moral altitudes.

“Besides,” Stephen argued, “I happened to be nearest to the river, andit was my job.”

“How do you always happen to be nearest to the people in trouble, andwhy is it always your ‘job’!”

“If there are any rewards for good conduct being distributed, I’m rightin line with my hand stretched out,” Stephen replied, with meaning inhis voice.

Rose blushed under her flowery hat as he led the way to a bench under asycamore tree that overhung the water.

She had almost convinced herself that she was as much in love withStephen Waterman as it was in her nature to be[Pg 69] with anybody. He washandsome in his big way, kind, generous, temperate, well educated, andwell-to-do. No fault could be found with his family, for his mother hadbeen a teacher, and his father, though a farmer, a college graduate.Stephen himself had had one year at Bowdoin, but had been recalled, asthe head of the house, when his father died. That was a severe blow; buthis mother’s death, three years after, was a grief never to be quiteforgotten. Rose, too, was the child of a gently bred mother, and all herinstincts were refined. Yes; Stephen in himself satisfied her in all thelarger wants of her nature, but she had an unsatisfied hunger for theworld,—the world of Portland, where her cousins lived; or, betterstill, the world of Boston, of which she heard through Mrs. WealthyBrooks, whose nephew Claude often came to visit her in Edgewood. Life ona farm a mile and a half distant from post-office and stores; life[Pg 70] inthe house with Rufus, who was rumored to be somewhat wild andunsteady,—this prospect seemed a trifle dull and uneventful to thetrivial part of her, though to the better part it was enough. The betterpart of her loved Stephen Waterman, dimly feeling the richness of hisnature, the tenderness of his affection, the strength of his character.Rose was not destitute either of imagination or sentiment. She did notrelish this constant weighing of Stephen in the balance: he was too goodto be weighed and considered. She longed to be carried out of herself ona wave of rapturous assent, but something seemed to hold her back,—someseed of discontent with the man’s environment and circumstances, somegerm of longing for a gayer, brighter, more varied life. No amount ofself-searching or argument could change the situation. She always lovedStephen more or less: more when he was away from her, because she neverapproved his[Pg 71] collars nor the set of his shirt bosom; and as henaturally wore these despised articles of apparel whenever he proposedto her, she was always lukewarm about marrying him and settling down onthe River Farm. Still, to-day she discovered in herself, with positivegratitude, a warmer feeling for him than she had experienced before. Hewore a new and becoming gray flannel shirt, with the soft turnovercollar 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, andthat when she did not like the effect as much as she had hoped, he hadmeekly grown a mustache for her sake; it did seem as if a man couldhardly do more to please an exacting lady-love.

And she had admired him unreservedly when he pulled off his boots andjumped into the river to save Alcestis Crambry’s life, without giving asingle thought to his own.[Pg 72]

And was there ever, after all, such a noble, devoted, unselfish fellow,or a better brother? And would she not despise herself for rejecting himsimply because he was countrified, and because she longed to see theworld of the fashion-plates in the magazines?

“The logs are so like people!” she exclaimed, as they sat down. “I couldname nearly every one of them for somebody in the village. Look at MiteShapley, that dancing little one, slipping over the falls and skimmingalong the top of the water, keeping out of all the deep places, andnever once touching the rocks.”

Stephen fell into her mood. “There’s Squire Anderson coming downcrosswise and bumping everything in reach. You know he’s always buyinglumber and logs without knowing what he is going to do with them. Theyjust lie and rot by the roadside. The boys always say that a toad-stoolis the old Squire’s ‘mark’ on a log.”[Pg 73]

“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 thebank with their spiked shoes, the poor things will never hold up theirheads again. Now they’re safe.—Oh, look, Rose! There come the ministerand his wife!”

A portly couple of peeled logs, exactly matched in size, cameponderously 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 closeto 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 theclump of delicate harebells. How[Pg 74] 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, adventurousones, feeble swimmers, deep divers. Some of them tried to start a smalljam 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 aninvisible third on the bench.

“There never was anything so like people,” Rose repeated, leaningforward excitedly. “And, upon my word, the minister and doctor couplesare still together. I wonder if they’ll get as far as the falls atUnion? That would be an odd place to part, wouldn’t it—Union?” Stephensaw 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[Pg 75] path, create more forceand 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 tolove 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 tome, Rose, I’ll take you safely down river.”

Stephen’s big hand closed on Rose’s little one she returned its pressuresoftly and gave him the kiss that with her, as with him, meant a promisefor all the years to come. The truth and passion in the man had brokenthe girl’s bonds for the moment. Her vision was clearer, and, realizingthe treasures of love and fidelity that were being offered her, sheaccepted 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”?[Pg 76]

And Stephen? He went home in the dusk, not knowing whether his feet weretouching 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 waswide enough only for one. His solitude was peopled again when he fed thecattle, for Rose’s face smiled at him from the haymow; and when hestrained the milk, Rose held the pans.

His nightly tasks over, he went out and took his favorite seat under theapple tree. All was still, save for the crickets’ ceaseless chirp, thesoft thud of an August sweeting dropping in the grass, and theswish-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 hebegan to love her, though he was only fourteen and quite unconsciousthat the first seed had been dropped in the rich soil of his boyishheart.

[Pg 77]He was seated on the kerosene barrel in the Edgewood post-office, whichwas 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 littlepink-and-white slip of a thing with a tin pail in her hand and asunbonnet falling off her wavy hair, Stephen suddenly stopped swinginghis feet. She gravely announced her wants, reading them from a bit ofpaper,—1 quart molasses, 1 package ginger, 1 lb. cheese, 2 pairs shoelaces, 1 card shirt buttons.

While the storekeeper drew off the molasses she exchanged shy looks withStephen, who, clean, well-dressed, and carefully mothered as he was,felt all at once uncouth and awkward, rather as if he were some clumsylout pitchforked into the presence of a fairy queen. He offered her thelittle bunch of bachelor’s buttons he held in[Pg 78] his hand, augury of thefuture, had he known it,—and she accepted them with a smile. Shedropped her memorandum; he picked it up, and she smiled again, doingstill more fatal damage than in the first instance. No words werespoken, but Rose, even at ten, had less need of them than most of hersex, for her dimples, aided by dancing eyes, length of lashes, and curveof lips, quite took the place of conversation. The dimples tempted,assented, denied, corroborated, deplored, protested, sympathized, whilethe intoxicated beholder cudgeled his brain for words or deeds whichshould provoke and evoke more and more dimples.

The storekeeper hung the molasses pail over Rose’s right arm and tuckedthe packages under her left, and as he opened the mosquito netting doorto let her pass out she looked back at Stephen, perched on the kerosenebarrel. Just a little girl, a little glance, a little dimple, andStephen was never quite the same again. The years went[Pg 79] on, and the boybecame man, yet no other image had ever troubled the deep, placid watersof his heart. Now, after many denials, the hopes and longings of hisnature had been answered, and Rose had promised to marry him. He wouldsacrifice his passion for logging and driving in the future, and becomea staid farmer and man of affairs, only giving himself a river holidaynow and then. How still and peaceful it was under the trees, and howglad his mother would be to think that the old farm would wake from itssleep, 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 waterthat stretched almost from him to Rose. His heart embarked on thatgolden pathway and sailed on it to the farther shore. The river was freeof 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,[Pg 80] sang, “Rose;” and as Stephen sat theredreaming of the future, his dreams, too, could have been voiced in oneword, and that word “Rose.”

THE LITTLE HOUSE

The autumn days flew past like shuttles in a loom. The river reflectedthe yellow foliage of the white birch and the scarlet of the maples. Thewayside 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 feltthat she had more to be grateful for than most girls, for Stephensurprised her with first one evidence and then another of thoughtfulgenerosity. In his heart of hearts he felt that Rose was not wholly his,that she reserved, withheld something; and it was the subjugation ofthis rebellious province that he sought. He and Rose had agreed to[Pg 82] waita year for their marriage, in which time Rose’s cousin would finishschool and be ready to live with the old people; meanwhile Stephen hadlearned that his maiden aunt would be glad to come and keep house forRufus. The work at the River Farm was too hard for a girl, so he hadpersuaded himself of late, and the house was so far from the villagethat Rose was sure to be lonely. He owned a couple of acres between hisplace and the Edgewood bridge, and here, one afternoon only a monthafter their engagement, he took Rose to see the foundations of a littlehouse he was building for her. It was to be only a story-and-a-halfcottage of six small rooms, the two upper chambers to be finished offlater on. Stephen had placed it well back from the road, leaving spacein 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 smallvegetable garden. There had been a house there years[Pg 83] before—so manyyears that the blackened ruins were entirely overgrown; but a few elmsand an old apple-orchard remained to shade the new dwelling and givewelcome to the coming inmates.

Stephen had fifteen hundred dollars in bank, he could turn his hand toalmost anything, and his love was so deep that Rose’s plumb-line hadnever sounded bottom; accordingly he was able, with the help of twosteady workers, to have the roof on before the first of November. Theweather was clear and fine, and by Thanksgiving clapboards, shingles,two coats of brown paint, and even the blinds had all been added. Thisexhibition of reckless energy on Stephen’s part did not wholly commenditself to the neighborhood.

“Steve’s too turrible spry,” said Rose’s grandfather; “he’ll triphimself up some o’ these times.”

“You never will,” remarked his better half, sagely.[Pg 84]

“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’nhalf riz. Let somebody come along an’ drop in a little more yeast, orset the dish a little mite nearer the stove, an’ you’ll see what’llhappen.”

“Steve’s kept house for himself some time, an’ I guess he knows moreabout bread-makin’ than you do.”

“There don’t nobody know more’n I do about nothin’, when my pipe’sdrawin’ 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 theworld an’ lived in large places, an’ the risin’ generation is in aturrible 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’?” askedhis wife. “No, I fished an’ fished, till I was about[Pg 85] ready to drop, an’I did git a few shiners, but land, they wa’n’t as big as the worms I wasketchin’ ’em with, so I pitched ’em back in the water an’ quit.”

During the progress of these remarks Mr. Wiley opened the door under thesink, and from beneath a huge iron pot drew a round tray loaded with aglass pitcher and half a dozen tumblers, which he placed carefully onthe 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 herean’ now.”

With this observation he took off his shoes, climbed in his stockingfeet to the vantage ground of a kitchen chair, and lifted a stone chinapitcher from a corner of the highest cupboard shelf where it had beenhidden.

“This lemonade’s gittin’ kind o’ dusty,” he complained, “I cal’lated tohev a kind of a spree on it when I got through choosin’[Pg 86] 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 thekitchen shades to the top, put both hands in his pockets, and walkedsolemnly round the table, gazing at his offering from every possiblepoint of view.

There had been three lemonade sets in the window of a Biddeford crockerystore when Mr. Wiley chanced to pass by, and he had brought home theblue and green one on approval.

To the casual eye it would have appeared as quite uniquely hideous untilthe red and yellow or the purple and orange ones had been seen; afterthat, no human being could have made a decision, where each was sounparalleled in its ugliness, and Old Kennebec’s confusion of mind wouldhave been perfectly understood by the connoisseur.

“How do you like it with the lemonade[Pg 87] in, mother?” he inquired eagerly.“The thing that plagues me most is that the red an’ yaller one I hedhome last week lights up better’n this, an’ I believe I’ll settle onthat; for as I was thinkin’ last night in bed, lemonade is mostly anevenin’ drink an’ Rose won’t be usin’ the set much by daylight. Rootbeer looks the han’somest in this purple set, but Rose loves lemonadebetter’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’llbe easier in my mind.”

In the opinion of the community at large Stephen’s forehandedness in thematter of preparations for his marriage was imprudence, and his desirefor neatness and beauty flagrant extravagance. The house itself was afoolish idea, it was thought, but there were extenuating circumstances,for the maiden aunt really needed a home, and Rufus was likely to marrybefore long and take his wife to the River Farm. It was[Pg 88] to be hoped inhis case that he would avoid the snares of beauty and choose a goodstout 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 byhimself. He learned all trades in succession, Love being his onlymaster. He had many odd days to spare from his farm work, and if he hadnot found days he would have taken nights. Scarcely a nail was drivenwithout Rose’s advice; and when the plastering was hard and dry, thewall-papers were the result of weeks of consultation.

Among the quiet joys of life there is probably no other so deep, sosweet, so full of trembling hope and delight, as the building and makingof a home,—a home where two lives are to be merged in one and flow ontogether, a home full of mysterious and delicious possibilities, hiddenin a future which is always rose-colored.

Rose’s sweet little nature broadened[Pg 89] under Stephen’s influence; but shehad her moments of discontent and unrest, always followed quickly byremorse.

At the Thanksgiving sociable some one had observed her turquoiseengagement ring,—some one who said that such a hand was worthy of adiamond, that turquoises were a pretty color, but that there was onlyone stone for an engagement ring, and that was a diamond. At theChristmas dance the same some one had said her waltzing would make her“all the rage” in Boston. She wondered if it were true, and wonderedwhether, if she had not promised to marry Stephen, some splendid beingfrom a city would have descended from his heights, bearing diamonds inhis 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 curtainsand ruffled pillow-shams. Stephen, too, had his momentary[Pg 90] pangs. Therewere times when he could calm his doubts only by working on the littlehouse. The mere sight of the beloved floors and walls and ceilingscomforted his heart, and brought him good cheer.

The winter was a cold one, so bitterly cold that even the rapid water atthe Gray Rock was a mass of curdled yellow ice, something that had onlyoccurred once or twice before within the memory of the oldestinhabitant.

It was also a very gay season for Pleasant River and Edgewood. Never hadthere been so many card-parties, sleigh rides and tavern dances, andnever such wonderful skating. The river was one gleaming, glitteringthoroughfare of ice from Milliken’s Mills to the dam at the Edgewoodbridge. At sundown bonfires were built here and there on the mirror likesurface, and all the young people from the neighboring villages gatheredon the[Pg 91] ice; while detachments of merry, rosy-cheeked boys and girls,those who preferred coasting, met at the top of Brigadier Hill, fromwhich one could get a longer and more perilous slide than from any otherpoint in the township.

Claude Merrill, in his occasional visits from Boston, was very much inevidence at the Saturday evening ice parties. He was not an artist atthe sport himself, but he was especially proficient in the art ofstrapping on a lady’s skates, and murmuring—as he adjusted the lastbuckle,—“The prettiest foot and ankle on the river!” It cannot bedenied that this compliment gave secret pleasure to the fair villagemaidens who received it, but it was a pleasure accompanied by electricshocks of excitement. A girl’s foot might perhaps be mentioned, if afellow were daring enough, but the line was rigidly drawn at the ankle,which was not a part of the human frame ever alluded to[Pg 92] in the politesociety of Edgewood at that time.

Rose, in her red linsey-woolsey dress and her squirrel furs and cap, wasthe life of every gathering, and when Stephen took her hand and theyglided up stream, alone together in the crowd, he used to wish that theymight skate on and on up the crystal ice-path of the river, to the moonitself, whither it seemed to lead them.

THE GARDEN OF EDEN

But the Saco all this time was meditating of its surprises. The snappingcold weather and the depth to which the water was frozen were aiding itin its preparation for the greatest event of the season. On a certaingray Saturday in March, after a week of mild temperature, it began torain as if, after months of snowing, it really enjoyed a new form ofentertainment. Sunday dawned with the very flood-gates of heavenopening, so it seemed. All day long the river was rising under its milesof 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 pointwas set too high to be carried away by freshets, but at[Pg 94] other villageswhose bridges were in less secure position there was little sleep andmuch 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 outinto the open, pushing everything before it. All the able-bodied men inthe village turned out of bed, and with lanterns in hand began to clearthe stores and mills, for it seemed that everything near the river banksmust go before that avalanche of ice.

Stephen and Rufus were there helping to save the property of theirfriends and neighbors; Rose and Mite Shapley had stayed the night with afriend, and all three girls were shivering with fear and excitement asthey stood near the bridge, watching the never-to-be-forgotten sight. Itis needless to say that the Crambry family was on hand, for whateverinstincts they may have lacked, the instinct for being on[Pg 95] the spot whenanything was happening, was present in them to the most remarkableextent. The town was supporting them in modest winter quarters somewhatnearer than Killick to the centre of civilization, and the first alarmbrought 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 towear it on!”

By the time the jam neared the falls it had grown with itsaccumulations, until it was made up of tier after tier of huge icecakes, piled side by side and one upon another, with heaps of trees andbranches and drifting lumber holding them in place. Some of the blocksstood erect and towered like icebergs, and these, glittering in thelights of the twinkling lanterns, pushed solemnly forward, cracking,crushing, and cutting everything in their way. When[Pg 96] the great massneared the planing mill on the east shore the girls covered their eyes,expecting to hear the crash of the falling building; but, impelled bythe force of some mysterious current, it shook itself ponderously, andthen, with one magnificent movement, slid up the river bank, tierfollowing tier in grand confusion. This left a water way for the maindrift; the ice broke in every direction, and down, down, down, fromBonnie Eagle and Moderation swept the harvest of the winter freezing. Itcame thundering over the dam, bringing boats, farming implements, posts,supports, and every sort of floating lumber with it; and cutting underthe flour mill, tipped it cleverly over on its side and went crashing onits way down river. At Edgewood it pushed colossal blocks of ice up thebanks into the roadway, piling them end upon end ten feet in air. Then,tearing and rumbling and booming through the narrows, it covered theintervale at Pleasant Point and[Pg 97] made a huge ice bridge below UnionFalls, a bridge so solid that it stood there for days, a sight for allthe neighboring villages.

This exciting event would have forever set apart this winter from allothers in Stephen’s memory, even had it not been also the winter when hewas building a house for his future wife. But afterwards, in lookingback on the wild night of the ice freshet, Stephen remembered thatRose’s manner was strained and cold and evasive, and that when he hadseen her talking with Claude Merrill, it had seemed to him that thatwhippersnapper had looked at her as no honorable man in Edgewood everlooked at an engaged girl. He recalled his throb of gratitude thatClaude lived at a safe distance, and his subsequent pang of remorse atdoubting, for an instant, Rose’s fidelity.

So at length April came, the Saco was still high, turbid, and angry, andthe boys were waiting at Limington Falls for the[Pg 98] “Ossipee drive” tobegin. Stephen joined them there, for he was restless, and the rivercalled him, as it did every spring. Each stubborn log that heencountered gave him new courage and power of overcoming. The rush ofthe water, the noise and roar and dash, the exposure and danger, allmade the blood run in his veins like new wine. When he came back to thefarm, all the cobwebs had been blown from his brain, and his firstinterview with Rose was so intoxicating that he went immediately toPortland, and bought, in a kind of secret penitence for his formerfears, 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. Wileysaid pink was foolish and was always sure to fade; and the border, beinga mass of solid roses, was five cents a yard, virtually a prohibitiveprice. Mr. Wiley said he “should hate to hev a spell of sickness an’ layabed in a room where there[Pg 99] was things growin’ all over the place.” Hethought “rough-plastered walls, where you could lay an’ count the spotswhere the roof leaked, was the most entertainin’ in sickness.” Rose hadlonged for the lovely pattern, but had sided dutifully with the prudentmajority, so that it was with a feeling of unauthorized and illegitimatejoy 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, helighted two kerosene lamps and two candles, finding the effect, underthis illumination, almost too brilliant and beautiful for belief. Roseshould never see it now, he determined, until the furniture was inplace. They had already chosen the kitchen and bedroom things, thoughthey would not be needed for some months; but the rest was to wait untilsummer, when there would be the hay-money to spend.

Stephen did not go back to the River[Pg 100] Farm till one o’clock that night;the pink bedroom held him in fetters too powerful to break. It lookedlike the garden of Eden, he thought. To be sure, it was only fifteenfeet square; Eden might have been a little larger, possibly, butotherwise the pink bedroom had every advantage. The pattern of rosesgrowing on a trellis was brighter than any flower-bed in June; and theborder—well, if the border had been five dollars a foot Stephen wouldnot have grudged the money when he saw the twenty running yards of rosybloom rioting under the white ceiling.

Before he blew out the last light he raised it high above his head andtook 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 growinghere with all the other flowers, and I shall always think of it as thegarden of Eden. I wonder, if I got the license and the ring and took herby surprise,[Pg 101] whether she’d be married in June instead of August? Icould be all ready if I could only persuade her.”

At this moment Stephen touched the summit of happiness; and it is acurious coincidence that as he was dreaming in his garden of Eden, theserpent, having just arrived at Edgewood, was sleeping peacefully at thehouse of Mrs. Brooks.

It was the serpent’s fourth visit that season, and he explained toinquiring friends that his former employer had sold the business, andthat the new management, while reorganizing, had determined to enlargethe 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 themanagement on half, or even full, salary, while the services of the“harmless doves” are dispensed with, and they are set free to flutterwhere they will.

THE SERPENT

Rose Wiley had the brightest eyes in Edgewood. It was impossible to lookat her without realizing that her physical sight was perfect. Whatmysterious species of blindness is it that descends, now and then, uponhuman creatures, and renders them incapable of judgment ordiscrimination?

Claude Merrill was a glove salesman in a Boston fancy-goods store. Thecalling itself is undoubtedly respectable, and it is quite conceivablethat a man can sell gloves and still be a man; but Claude Merrill was amanikin. He inhabited a very narrow space behind a very short counter,but to him it seemed the earth and the fullness thereof.[Pg 103]

When, irreproachably neat and even exquisite in dress, he gave aNapoleonic glance at his array of glove-boxes to see if the femaleassistant had put them in proper order for the day; when, with thatwonderful eye for detail that had wafted him to his present height ofpower, he pounced upon the powder-sprinklers and found them, as heexpected, empty; when, with masterly judgment, he had made up andticketed a basket of misfits and odd sizes to attract the eyes of womenwho were their human counterparts, he felt himself bursting with thepride and pomp of circumstance. His cambric handkerchief adjusted in hiscoat with the monogram corner well displayed, a last touch to thecarefully trained lock on his forehead, and he was ready for hiscustomers.

“Six, did you say, miss? I should have thought five and threequarters—Attend to that gentleman, Miss Dix, please; I am very busy.”[Pg 104]

“Six-and-a-half gray suede? Here they are, an exquisite shade. Shall Itry them on? The right hand, if you will. Perhaps you’d better removeyour elegant ring; I shouldn’t like to have anything catch in thesetting.”

“Miss Dix! Six-and-a-half black glace—upper shelf, third box—for thislady. 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; ourcustomers prefer kid.”

Oh, but he was in his element, was Claude Merrill; though the glamourthat surrounded him in the minds of the Edgewood girls did not emanatewholly from his finicky little person: something of it was the glamourthat belonged to Boston,—remote, fashionable, gay, rich, almostinaccessible Boston, which none could see without the expenditure offive or six dollars in railway fare, with the added extravagance of anight in a hotel, if one would explore it[Pg 105] thoroughly and come homepossessed of all its illimitable treasures of wisdom and experience.

When Claude came to Edgewood for a Sunday, or to spend a vacation withhis aunt, he brought with him something of the magic of a metropolis.Suddenly, to Rose’s eye, Stephen looked larger and clumsier, his shoeswere not the proper sort, his clothes were ordinary, his neckties wereyears behind the fashion. Stephen’s dancing, compared with Claude’s, wasas 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 asif 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. MiteShapley was so affected by it that when Rufus attempted to encircle herfor the mazurka she exclaimed, “Don’t act as if you were spearing logs,Rufus!”

Of the two men, Stephen had more to[Pg 106] say, but Claude said more. He wasthought brilliant in conversation; but what wonder, when one consideredhis advantages and his dazzling experiences! He had customers who wereworth their thousands; ladies whose fingers never touched dish-water;ladies who wouldn’t buy a glove of anybody else if they went bare-handedto the grave. He lived with his sister Maude Arthurlena in a house wherethere were twenty-two other boarders who could be seated at meals all atthe same time, so immense was the dining-room. He ate his dinner at arestaurant daily, and expended twenty-five cents for it withoutblenching. He went to the theatre once a week, and was often accompaniedby “lady friends” who were “elegant dressers.”

In a moment of wrath Stephen had called him a “counter-jumper,” but itwas a libel. So short and rough a means of exit from his place of powerwas wholly beneath Claude’s dignity. It was with a[Pg 107] “Pardon me, MissDix,” that, the noon hour having arrived, he squeezed by that slave andvictim, and raising the hinged board that separated his kingdom fromthat of the ribbon department, passed out of the store, hat in hand,serene in the consciousness that though other clerks might nibbleluncheon from a brown paper bag, he would speedily be indulging in anexpensive repast; and Miss Dix knew it, and it was a part of his almostinvincible attraction for her.

It seemed flying in the face of Providence to decline the attentions ofsuch a gorgeous butterfly of fashion simply because one was engaged tomarry another man at some distant day.

All Edgewood femininity united in saying that there never was such aperfect gentleman as Claude Merrill; and during the time when hispopularity was at its height Rose lost sight of the fact that Stephencould have furnished the stuff for[Pg 108] a dozen Claudes and have had enoughleft for an ordinary man besides.

April gave place to May, and a veil hung between the lovers,—anintangible, gossamer-like thing, not to be seen with the naked eye, but,oh! so plainly to be felt. Rose hid herself thankfully behind it, whileStephen had not courage to lift a corner. She had twice been seendriving with Claude Merrill—that Stephen knew; but she had explainedthat there were errands to be done, that her grandfather had taken thehorse, and that Mr. Merrill’s escort had been both opportune andconvenient for these practical reasons. Claude was everywhere present,the centre of attraction, the observed of all observers. He wasirresistible, contagious, almost epidemic. Rose was now gay, now silent;now affectionate, now distant, now coquettish; in fine, everything thatwas capricious, mysterious, agitating, incomprehensible.

One morning Alcestis Crambry went[Pg 109] to the post-office for Stephen andbrought him back the newspapers and letters. He had hung about the RiverFarm so much that Stephen finally gave him bed and food in exchange fornumberless small errands. Rufus was temporarily confined in a dark roomwith some strange pain and trouble in his eyes, and Alcestis proved ofuse in many ways. He had always been Rose’s slave, and had often broughtmessages and notes from the Brier Neighborhood, so that when Stephen sawa 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 isnot mine, Alcestis; it belongs to Miss Rose. Go straight back and giveit 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. ClaudeMerrill had[Pg 110] given him a letter for Rose, but his notion was thatanything that belonged to her belonged to Stephen, and the Watermanplace was much nearer than the Wileys’, particularly at dinner-time!

When the boy had slouched away, Stephen sat under the apple tree, now amass of roseate bloom, and buried his face in his hands.

It was not precisely a love-letter that he had read, nevertheless itblackened the light of the sun for him. Claude asked Rose to meet himanywhere on the road to the station and to take a little walk, as he wasleaving that afternoon and could not bear to say good-by to her in thepresence of her grandmother. “Under the circumstances,” he wrote, deeplyunderlining the words, “I cannot remain a moment longer in Edgewood,where I have been so happy and so miserable!” He did not refer to thefact that the time limit on his return-ticket expired that day, for his[Pg 111]dramatic instinct told him that such sordid matters have no place inheroics.

Stephen sat motionless under the tree for an hour, deciding on some planof action.

He had work at the little house, but he did not dare go there lest heshould see the face of dead Love looking from the windows of the pinkbedroom; dead Love, cold, sad, merciless. His cheeks burned as hethought of the marriage license and the gold ring hidden away upstairsin the drawer of his shaving stand. What a romantic fool he had been, tothink he could hasten the glad day by a single moment! What a piece ofboyish 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 forthe 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[Pg 112] day or by night, might havefloated 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 ofthe pines the white stars of the hepatica glistened and the paleanemones were coming into bloom. Partridge-berries glowed red undertheir glossy leaves, and clumps of violets sweetened the air. Squirrelschattered, woodpeckers tapped, thrushes sang; but Stephen was blind anddeaf to all the sweet harbingers of spring.

Just then he heard voices, realizing with a throb of delight that, atany rate, Rose had not left home to meet Claude, as he had asked her todo. Looking through the branches, he saw the two standing together, Mrs.Brooks’s horse; with the offensive trunk in the back of the wagon, beinghitched to a tree near by. There was nothing in the tableau to stirStephen to[Pg 113] fury, but he read between the lines and suffered as heread—suffered and determined to sacrifice himself if he must, so thatRose could have what she wanted, this miserable apology for a man. Hehad never been the husband for Rose; she must take her place in a largercommunity, worthy of her beauty and charm.

Claude was talking and gesticulating ardently. Rose’s head was bent andthe tears were rolling down her cheeks. Suddenly Claude raised his hat,and with a passionate gesture of renunciation walked swiftly to thewagon, and looking back once, drove off with the utmost speed of whichthe Brooks’s horse was capable,—Rose waving him a farewell with onehand and wiping her eyes with the other.

THE TURQUOISE RING

Stephen stood absolutely still in front of the opening in the trees, andas Rose turned she met him face to face. She had never dreamed his eyescould 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 thoughtit could not be his.

“I am not in trouble, exactly,” Rose stammered, concealing herdiscomfiture as well as possible. “I am a little unhappy because I havemade some one else unhappy; and now that you know it, you will beunhappy too, and angry besides, I suppose, though you’ve seen everythingthere was to see.”

“There is no occasion for sorrow,[Pg 115]” Stephen said. “I didn’t mean to breakin on any interview; I came over to give you back your freedom. If youever cared enough for me to marry me, the time has gone by. I am willingto own that I over-persuaded you, but I am not the man to take a girlagainst her inclinations, so we will say good-by and end the thing hereand now. I can only wish”—here his smothered rage at fate almost chokedhim—“that, when you were selecting another husband, you had chosen awhole man!”

Rose quivered with the scorn of his tone. “Size isn’t everything!” sheblazed.

“Not in bodies, perhaps; but it counts for something in hearts andbrains, and it is convenient to have a sense of honor that’s at least asbig as a grain of mustard-seed.”

“Claude Merrill is not dishonorable,” Rose exclaimed impetuously; “or atleast he isn’t as bad as you think: he has never asked me to marry him.”

“Then he probably was not quite ready[Pg 116] to speak, or perhaps you were notquite ready to hear,” retorted Stephen, bitterly; “but don’t let us havewords,—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; onlyI wouldn’t allow it to myself: I kept hoping against hope that I wasmistaken. There have been times when I would have married you, willingor unwilling, but I didn’t love you so well then; and now that there’sanother man in the case, it’s different, and I’m strong enough to do theright thing. Follow your heart and be happy; in a year or two I shall beglad I had the grit to tell you so. Good-by, Rose!”

Rose, pale with amazement, summoned all her pride, and drawing theturquoise engagement ring from her finger, handed it silently toStephen, hiding her face as he flung it vehemently down the river-bank.His dull eyes followed it and half uncomprehendingly saw it settle andglisten in a nest of brown pine-needles. Then he put out his hand for alast clasp and strode away without a word.

[Pg 117]Presently Rose heard first the scrape of his boat on the sand, then thesoft sound of his paddles against the water, then nothing but thesquirrels and the woodpeckers and the thrushes, then not eventhese,—nothing but the beating of her own heart.

She sat down heavily, feeling as if she were wide awake for the firsttime in many weeks. How had things come to this pass with her?

Claude Merrill had flattered her vanity and given her some moments ofrestlessness and dissatisfaction with her lot; but he had not untilto-day really touched her heart or tempted her, even momentarily, fromher allegiance to Stephen. His eyes had always looked unspeakablethings; his voice had seemed to breathe feelings that he had never daredput in words; but to-day he had really stirred her, for although he[Pg 118] hadstill been vague, it was easy to see that his love for her had passedall bounds of discretion. She remembered his impassioned farewells, hisdespair, his doubt as to whether he could forget her by plunging intothe vortex of business, or whether he had better end it all in theriver, as so many other broken-hearted fellows had done. She had beentouched by his misery, even against her better judgment; and she hadintended to confess it all to Stephen sometime, telling him that sheshould never again accept attentions from a stranger, lest a tragedylike 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-wispby resting in his deeper, serener love. She had meant to be contrite andfaithful, praying nightly that poor Claude might live down his presentanguish, of which she had been the innocent cause.[Pg 119]

Instead, what had happened? She had been put altogether in the wrong.Stephen had almost cast her off, and that, too, without argument. He hadgiven her her liberty before she had asked for it, taking it forgranted, without question, that she desired to be rid of him. Instead ofcomforting her in her remorse, or sympathizing with her for so noblyrefusing to shine in Claude’s larger world of Boston, Stephen hadassumed that she was disloyal in every particular.

And pray how was she to cope with such a disagreeable and complicatedsituation?

It would not be long before the gossips rolled under their tongues thedelicious morsel of a broken engagement, and sooner or later she mustbrave the displeasure of her grandmother.

And the little house—that was worse than anything. Her tears flowedfaster as she thought of Stephen’s joy in it, of his faithful labor, ofthe savings he had invested[Pg 120] in it. She hated and despised her self whenshe thought of the house, and for the first time in her life sherealized the limitations of her nature, the poverty of her ideals.

What should she do? She had lost Stephen and ruined his life. Now, inorder that she need not blight a second career, must she contrive toreturn Claude’s love! To be sure, she thought, it seemed indecent tomarry any other man than Stephen, when they had built a house together,and chosen wall-papers, and a kitchen stove, and dining-room chairs; butwas it not the only way to evade the difficulties?

Suppose that Stephen, in a fit of pique, should ask somebody else toshare the new cottage?

As this dreadful possibility came into view, Rose’s sobs actuallyfrightened the birds and the squirrels. She paced back and forth underthe trees, wondering how[Pg 121] she could have been engaged to a man for eightmonths and know so little about him as she seemed to know about StephenWaterman to-day. Who would have believed he could be so autocratic, sosevere, so unapproachable! Who could have foreseen that she, Rose Wiley,would ever be given up to another man,—handed over as coolly as if shehad been a bale of cotton? She wanted to return Claude Merrill’s lovebecause it was the only way out of the tangle; but at the moment shealmost hated him for making so much trouble, for hurting Stephen, forabasing her in her own eyes, and, above all, for giving her rustic loverthe chance of impersonating an injured emperor.

It did not simplify the situation to have Mite Shapley come in duringthe evening and run upstairs, uninvited, to sit on the toot of her bedand chatter.

Rose had closed her blinds and lay in the dark, pleading a headache.[Pg 122]

Mite was in high feather. She had met Claude Merrill going to thestation that afternoon. He was much too early for the train, which thestation agent reported to be behind time, so he had asked her to take adrive. She didn’t know how it happened, for he looked at his watch everynow and then; but, anyway, they got to laughing and “carrying on,” andwhen they came back to the station the train had gone. Wasn’t that thegreatest 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 teamthere, and had been taken into Portland with his trunk, and she hadbrought 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[Pg 123] Shapley departed after a verybrief call, leaving behind her an entirely new train of thought.

If Claude Merrill were so love-blighted that he could only by thegreatest self-control keep from flinging himself into the river, howcould he conceal his sufferings so completely from Mite Shapley,—littleshallow-pated, scheming coquette?

“So that pretty Merrill feller has gone, has he, mother?” inquired OldKennebec that night, as he took off his wet shoes and warmed his feet atthe kitchen oven. “Well, it ain’t a mite too soon. I allers distrustthat pink-an’-white, rosy-posy kind of a man. One of the most turriblethings that ever happened in Gard’ner was brought about by jest sech afeller. Mothers hedn’t hardly ought to name their boy babies Claudewithout they expect ’em to play the dickens with the girls. I don’ knownothin’ ’bout the fust Claude, there ain’t none of[Pg 124] ’em in the Bible,air they, but whoever he was, I bate ye he hed a deceivin’ tongue. If ithedn’t be’n for me, that Claude in Gard’ner would ’a’ run away with mybrother’s fust wife; an’ I’ll tell ye jest how I contrived to put aspoke 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 wasamiss with it, and where was the charm, the bewilderment, theintoxication, the glamour?

She had been glad to come to Boston, for the last two weeks in Edgewoodhad proved intolerable. She had always been a favorite heretofore, fromthe days when the boys fought for the privilege of dragging her sled upthe hills, and filling her tiny mitten with peppermints, down to theyear when she came home from the Wareham Female Seminary, anacknowledged belle and beauty. Suddenly she had felt her popularitydwindling. There was no real change in the demeanor of heracquaintances, but[Pg 126] there was a certain subtle difference of atmosphere.Everybody sympathized tacitly with Stephen, and she did not wonder, forthere were times when she secretly took his part against herself. Only afew 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 bethreatened with partial blindness, and that Stephen’s heart, alreadysore, should be torn with new anxieties. She could hardly bear to seethe doctor’s carriage drive by day after day, and hear night after nightthat Rufus was unresigned, melancholy, half mad; while Stephen, as thedoctor said, was brother, mother, and father in one, as gentle as awoman, as firm as Gibraltar.

These foes to her peace of mind all came from within; but without wasthe hourly reproach of her grandmother, whose scorching tongue touchedevery sensitive[Pg 127] spot in the girl’s nature and burned it like fire.

Finally a way of escape opened. Mrs. Wealthy Brooks, who had always beenrheumatic, grew suddenly worse. She had heard of a “magnetic” physicianin Boston, also of one who used electricity with wonderful effect, andshe announced her intention of taking both treatments impartially andalternately. The neighbors were quite willing that Wealthy Ann Brooksshould spend the deceased Ezra’s money in any way she pleased,—she hadearned it, goodness knows, by living with him for twenty-fiveyears,—but before the day for her departure arrived her right arm andknee became so much more painful that it was impossible for her totravel alone.

At this juncture Rose was called upon to act as nurse and companion in afriendly way. She seized the opportunity hungrily as a way out of herpresent trouble; but,[Pg 128] knowing what Mrs. Brooks’s temper was in time ofhealth, she could see clearly what it was likely to prove when pain andanguish wrung the brow.

Rose had been in Boston now for some weeks, and she was sitting in theJoy Street boarding-house,—Joy Street, forsooth! It was nearly bedtime,and she was looking out upon a huddle of roofs and back yards, upon alandscape filled with clothes-lines, ash-barrels, and ill-fed cats.There were no sleek country tabbies, with the memory in their eyes oftasted cream, nothing but city-born, city-bred, thin, despairing cats ofthe pavement, cats no more forlorn than Rose herself.

She had “seen Boston,” for she had accompanied Mrs. Brooks in thehorse-cars daily to the two different temples of healing where that ladyworshipped and offered sacrifices. She had also gone with MaudeArthurlena to Claude Merrill’s store to buy pair of gloves, and hadoverheard Miss Di[Pg 129]x (the fashionable “lady-assistant” before mentioned)say to Miss Brackett of the ribbon department, that she thought Mr.Merrill must have worn his blinders that time he stayed so long inEdgewood. This bit of polished irony was unintelligible to Rose atfirst, but she mastered it after an hour’s reflection. She wasn’tlooking her best that day, she knew; the cotton dresses that seemed sopretty at home were common and countrified here, and her best blackcashmere looked cheap and shapeless beside Miss Dix’s brilliantine. MissDix’s figure was her strong point, and her dressmaker was particularlyskillful in the arts of suggestion, concealment, and revelation. Beautyhas its chosen backgrounds. Rose in white dimity, standing knee deep inher blossoming brier bushes, the river running at her feet, dark pinetrees behind her graceful head, sounded depths and touched heights ofharmony forever beyond the reach of the modish Miss Dix, but she wasout[Pg 130] of her element and suffered accordingly.

Rose had gone to walk with Claude one evening when she first arrived. Hehad shown her the State House and the Park Street Church, and sat withher on one of the benches in the Common until nearly ten. She knew thatMrs. Brooks had told her nephew of the broken engagement, but he made noreference to the matter, save to congratulate her that she was rid of aman who was so clumsy, so dull and behind the times, as StephenWaterman, saying that he had always marveled she could engage herself toanybody who could insult her by offering her a turquoise ring.

Claude was very interesting that evening, Rose thought, but rathergloomy and unlike his former self. He referred to his graveresponsibilities, to the frail health of Maude Arthurlena, and to thevicissitudes of business. He vaguely intimated that his[Pg 131] daily life inthe store was not so pleasant as it had been formerly; that there were“those” (he would speak no more plainly) who embarrassed him withundesired 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 rememberedin a flash Miss Dix’s heavy eyebrows, snapping eyes, and high color.Claude seemed very happy that Rose had come to Boston, though he wassurprised, knowing what a trial his aunt must be, now that she was sohelpless. It was unfortunate, also, that Rose could not go on excursionswithout leaving his aunt alone, or he should have been glad to offer hisescort. He pressed her hand when he left her at her door, telling hershe could never realize what a comfort her friendship was to him; couldnever imagine how thankful he was that she had courageously freedherself from ties that in time would[Pg 132] have made her wretched. His heartwas full, he said, of feelings he dared not utter; but in the nearfuture, when certain clouds had rolled by, he would unlock itstreasures, 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 mysteriousromance, 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 ofher reasons for coming to Boston had been to fall more deeply in lovewith 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 stillworse,—a useless one; for after several interviews she felt herselfdrifting farther and farther from Claude; and if he felt any burningambition to make her his own, he certainly concealed it with admirableart.[Pg 133] Given up, with the most offensive magnanimity, by Stephen, and notgreatly desired by Claude,—that seemed the present status of proud RoseWiley of the Brier Neighborhood.

It was June, she remembered, as she leaned out of the open window; atleast it was June in Edgewood, and she supposed for convenience’s sakethey called it June in Boston. Not that it mattered much what the poorcity prisoners called it. How beautiful the river would be at home, withthe trees along the banks in full leaf! How she hungered and thirstedfor the river,—to see it sparkle in the sunlight; to watch themoonglade stretching from one bank to the other; to hear the soft lap ofthe water on the shore, and the distant murmur of the falls at thebridge! And the Brier Neighborhood would be at its loveliest, for thewild roses were in blossom by now. And the little house! How sweet itmust look under the shade of the elms,[Pg 134] with the Saco rippling at theback! Was poor Rufus still lying in a darkened room, and was Stephennursing him,—disappointed Stephen,—dear, noble old Stephen?

GOLD AND PINCHBECK

Just then Mrs. Brooks groaned in the next room and called Rose, who wentin to minister to her real needs, or to condole with her fancied ones,whichever course of action appeared to be the more agreeable at themoment.

Mrs. Brooks desired conversation, it seemed, or at least she desired anaudience for a monologue, for she recognized no antiphonal obligationson the part of her listeners. The doctors were not doing her a speck ofgood, 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’tbelieve her hens were receiving proper care, and she had forgotten topull down the shades in the[Pg 136] spare room, and the sun would fade thecarpet 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’selectricity any better than a bumblebee’s buzz, and she had a great mindto go home and try Dr. Lord from Bonnie Eagle; and there was a letterfor 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 toMrs. Brooks,—little beside the news that the Waterman barn, the finestbarn in the whole township, had been struck by lightning and burned tothe ground. Stephen was away at the time, having taken Rufus toPortland, where an operation on his eyes would shortly be performed atthe hospital, and one of the neighbors was sleeping at the River Farmand taking[Pg 137] care of the cattle; still the house might not have beensaved but for one of Alcestis Crambry’s sudden bursts of common sense,which occurred now quite regularly. He succeeded not only in getting thehorses out of the stalls, but gave the alarm so promptly that the wholeneighborhood 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 toteach, Alcestis, but he never could have expected to be rewarded in thispractical way. The barn was only partly insured; and when she had metStephen at the station next day, and condoled with him on his loss, hehad said: “Oh, well, Mite, a little more or less doesn’t make muchdifference just now.”

“The rest wouldn’t interest you, Mrs. Brooks,” said Rose, precipitatelypreparing to leave the room.

“Something about Claude, I suppose,” ventured that astute lady. “I thinkMite[Pg 138] kind of fancied him. I don’t believe he ever gave her any realencouragement; but he’d make love to a pump, Claude Merrill would; andso would his father before him. How my sister Abby made out to land himwe never knew, for they said he’d proposed to every woman in the town ofBingham, not excepting the wooden Indian girl in front of the cigarstore, and not one of ’em but our Abby ever got a chance to name theday. Abby was as set as the everlastin’ hills, and if she’d made up hermind 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 readthe rest of Mite Shapley’s letter in the quiet of her own room.[Pg 139]

“Stephen looks thin and pale [so it ran on], but he does not allowanybody to sympathize with him. I think you ought to know something thatI haven’t told you before for fear of hurting your feelings; but if Iwere in your place I’d like to hear everything, and then you’ll know howto act when you come home. Just after you left, Stephen plowed up allthe land in front of your new house,—every inch of it, all up and downthe road, between the fence and the front door-step,—and then heplanted 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 elmat the gate. Stephen never was spiteful in his life, but this looks alittle like spite. Perhaps he only wanted to save his self-respect andlet people know, that everything between you was over forever. Perhapshe thought it would stop talk once and for all. But you won’t mind, youlucky girl, staying nearly[Pg 140] three months in Boston! [So Almira purled onin 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 arehis aunt. Is he as devoted as ever? And when will it be? How do you likethe theatre? Mother thinks you won’t attend; but, by what he used tosay, 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 andhospital expenses in Portland, will mount up to five hundred dollars. Ofcourse Stephen will be dreadfully hampered by the loss of his barn, andmaybe he wants to let your house that was to be, because he really needsmoney. 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 feettall now, and by August (just when[Pg 141] you were intending to move in) itwill hide the front windows. Not that you’ll care, with a diamond onyour engagement finger!”

The letter was more than flesh and blood could stand, and Rose flungherself on her bed to think and regret and repent, and, if possible, tosob herself to sleep.

She knew now that she had never admired and respected Stephen so much asat the moment when, under the reproach of his eyes, she had given himback his ring. When she left Edgewood and parted with him forever shehad 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 distrustedhim; to-night she despised him.

What had happened to Rose was the[Pg 142] dilation of her vision. She sawthings under a wider sky and in a clearer light. Above all, her heartwas wrung with pity for Stephen—Stephen, with no comforting woman’shand 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 thatunlocked her better nature. “Darkness is the time for making roots andestablishing plants, whether of the soil or of the soul,” and all atonce Rose had become a woman: a little one, perhaps, but a wholewoman—and a bit of an angel, too, with healing in her wings. When andhow had this metamorphosis come about? Last summer the fragilebrier-rose had hung over the river and looked at its pretty reflectionin the placid surface of the water. Its few buds and blossoms were solovely, it sighed for nothing more. The changes in the plant had[Pg 143] beenwrought secretly and silently. In some mysterious way, as common to soulas to plant life, the roots had gathered in more nourishment from theearth, they had stored up strength and force, and all at once there wasa marvelous fructifying of the plant, hardiness of stalk, new shootseverywhere, vigorous leafage, and a shower of blossoms.

But everything was awry: Boston was a failure; Claude was a weakling anda flirt; her turquoise ring was lying on the river-bank; Stephen did notlove her any longer; her flower-beds were plowed up and planted in corn;and the cottage that Stephen had built and she had furnished, thatbeloved cottage, was to let.

She was in Boston; but what did that amount to, after all? What was theState House to a bleeding heart, or the Old South Church to a pridewounded like hers?

At last she fell asleep, but it was only[Pg 144] by stopping her ears to thenoises of the city streets and making herself imagine the sound of theriver rippling under her bedroom windows at home. The back yards ofBoston faded, and in their place came the banks of the Saco, strewn withpine needles, fragrant with wild flowers. Then there was the bit ofsunny beach, where Stephen moored his boat. She could hear the sound ofhis paddle. Boston lovers came a-courting in the horse-cars, but hershad floated down stream to her just at dusk in a birch-bark canoe, orsometimes, 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 ashe flung the despised turquoise ring down the river bank.

A COUNTRY CHEVALIER

It was early in August when Mrs. Wealthy Brooks announced her speedyreturn from Boston to Edgewood.

“It’s jest as well Rose is comin’ back,” said Mr. Wiley to his wife. “Inever 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, butthere he’s caperin’ loose round the pastur’.”

“I should think Rose would be ashamed to come back, after the way she’scarried on,” remarked Mrs. Wiley, “but if she needed punishment I guessshe’s got it bein’ comp’ny-keeper to Wealthy Ann Brooks. Bein’ a churchmember in good an’ reg’lar standin’, I s’pose Wealthy Ann’ll go to[Pg 146]heaven, but I can only say that it would be a sight pleasanter place fora good many if she didn’t.”

“Rose has be’n foolish an’ flirty an’ wrong-headed,” allowed hergrandfather; “but it won’t do no good to treat her like a hardenedcriminile, same’s you did afore she went away. She ain’t hardly got herwisdom teeth cut, in love affairs! She ain’t broke the laws of the Stateo’ Maine, nor any o’ the ten commandments; she ain’t disgraced thefamily, an’ there’s a chance for her to reform, seein’ as how she ain’ttwenty year old yet. I was turrible wild an’ hot-headed myself afore youketched 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 philosophyturrible bad.”[Pg 147]

“I need patience consid’able more,” was Mrs. Wiley’s withering retort.

“That’s the way with folks,” said Old Kennebec reflectively, as he wenton peacefully puffing. “If you try to indoose ’em to take an int’rest ina bran’-new virtue, they won’t look at it; but they’ll run down a sidestreet an’ buy half a yard more o’ some turrible old shopworn trait o’character that they’ve kep’ in stock all their lives, an’ thateverybody’s sick to death of. There was a man in Gard’ner”—

But alas! the experiences of the Gardiner man, though told in the samedelightful 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-comingsomewhat easier, and the sight of her own room and belongings soothedher troubled spirit,[Pg 148] but the days went on, and nothing happened tochange the situation. She had lost a lover, that was all, and there wereplenty more to choose from, or there always had been; but the only oneshe wanted was the one who made no sign. She used to think that shecould twist Stephen around her little finger; that she had only tobeckon to him and he would follow her to the ends of the earth. Now fearhad entered her heart. She no longer felt sure, because she no longerfelt worthy, of him, and feeling both uncertainty and unworthiness, herlips were sealed and she was rendered incapable of making any bid forforgiveness.

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 waslonging, and pining, and sickening, with hope deferred, and growing,too, with such astonishing rapidity that the very angels marveled! Andon the other, a man’s whole vision of life an[Pg 149] duty was widening anddeepening 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, butonly from a distance. She seemed paler and thinner, he thought,—theresult; probably, of her metropolitan gayeties. He heard no rumor of anyengagement, and he wondered if it were possible that her love for ClaudeMerrill had not, after all, been returned in kind. This seemed a wildimpossibility. His mind refused to entertain the supposition that anyman on earth could resist falling in love with Rose, or, having fallenin, that he could ever contrive to climb out. So he worked on at hisfarm harder than ever, and grew soberer and more careworn daily. Rufushad never seemed so near and dear to him as in these weeks when he hadlived under the shadow of threatened blindness. The burning of the barnand the[Pg 150] strain upon their slender property brought the brotherstogether 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 aspell!”

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 alienstep on that sacred threshold. The plowing up of the flower-beds andplanting of the corn had served a double purpose. It showed the toocurious public the finality of his break with Rose and her absolutefreedom; it also prevented them from suspecting that he still enteredthe place. His visits were not many, but he could not bear to let thedust settle on the furniture that he and Rose had chosen together; andwhenever he locked the door and went back to the River Farm, he thoughtof a verse in the Bible: “Therefore the Lord God sent him[Pg 151] forth fromthe 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 oflogs, thousands upon thousands of them covering the surface of the waterfrom the bridge almost up to the Brier Neighborhood.

The Edgewood drive was late, owing to a long drought and low water; butit was to begin on the following Monday, and Lije Dennett and his underboss were looking over the situation and planning the campaign. As theyleaned over the bridge-rail they saw Mr. Wiley driving down the riverroad. When he caught sight of them he hitched the old white horse at thecorner and walked toward them, filling his pipe the while in his usualleisurely manner.

“We’re not busy this forenoon,” said Lije Dennett. “S’pose we standright here and let Old Kennebec have his say out for[Pg 152] once. We’ve neverheard the end of one of his stories, an’ he’s be’n talkin’ for twentyyears.”

“All right,” rejoined his companion, with a broad grin at the idea. “I’mwillin’, if you are; but who’s goin’ to tell our fam’lies the reasonwe’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 bridgeunder 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 feltthat after half a century of neglect his powers were at last appreciatedby his fellow-citizens.

He proposed numerous strategic movements to be made upon the logs,whereby they would move more swiftly than usual. He described severalsuccessful drives on the Kennebec, when the logs had melted down theriver almost by magic, owing to his generalship; and he paid a tribute,in[Pg 153] passing, to the docility of the boss, who on that occasion had nevermoved a single log without asking his advice.

From this topic he proceeded genially to narrate the life-histories ofthe boss, the under boss, and several Indians belonging to thecrew,—histories in which he himself played a gallant and conspicuouspart. The conversation then drifted naturally to the exploits ofriver-drivers in general, and Mr. Wiley narrated the sorts of feats inlog-riding, pickpole-throwing, and the shooting of rapids that he haddone in his youth. These stories were such as had seldom been heard bythe ear of man; and, as they passed into circulation instantaneously, weare 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:[Pg 154]

“Bless my soul! I clean forgot that saleratus, and mother’s settin’ atthe kitchen table with the bowl in her lap, waitin’ for it! Got soint’rested in your list’nin’ I never thought o’ the time.”

The connubial discussion that followed this breach of discipline beganon the arrival of the saleratus, and lasted through supper; and Rosewent to bed almost immediately afterward for very dullness and apathy.Her life stretched out before her in the most aimless and monotonousfashion. She saw nothing but heartache in the future; and that sherichly deserved it made it none the easier to bear.

Feeling feverish and sleepless, she slipped on her gray Shaker cloak andstole quietly downstairs for a breath of air. Her grandfather andgrandmother were talking on the piazza, and good humor seemed to havebeen restored.

“I was over to the tavern to-night,” she heard him say, as she sat downat a little[Pg 155] distance. “I was over to the tavern to-night, an’ a fellerfrom Gorham got to talkin’ an’ braggin’ ’bout what a stock o’ goods theykep’ in the store over there. ‘An’,’ says I, ‘I bate ye dollars todoughnuts that there hain’t a darn thing ye can ask for at Bill Pike’sstore at Pleasant River that he can’t go down cellar, or up attic, orout in the barn chamber an’ git for ye.’ Well, sir, he took me up, an’ Iborrered the money of Joe Dennett, who held the stakes, an’ we wentright over to Bill Pike’s with all the boys follerin’ on behind. An’ theGorham man never let on what he was goin’ to ask for till the hull crowdof 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 withone.’

“Bill scratched his head an’ I held my breath. Then says he, ‘Pears tome 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[Pg 156] plaguedfor room I can’t keep ’em in here with the groc’ries. Jim (that’s hisnew 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 pulpitswe’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’ theGorham 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 tosanctify the money by usin’ it for a new wash-boiler.”

“The fact is,” explained old Kennebec, somewhat confused, “that the boysmade me spend every cent of it then an’ there.”

Rose heard her grandmother’s caustic reply, and then paid no furtherattention until her keen ear caught the sound of Stephen’s name. It wasa part of her[Pg 157] unhappiness that since her broken engagement no one wouldever allude to him, and she longed to hear him mentioned, so thatperchance she could get some inkling of his movements.

“I met Stephen to-night for the first time in a week,” said Mr. Wiley.“He kind o’ keeps out o’ my way lately. He’s goin’ to drive his spaninto Portland tomorrow mornin’ and bring Rufus home from the hospitalSunday 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’ tojoin the drive Monday mornin’ at the bridge here, so I’ll get the latestnews o’ the boy. Land! I’ll be turrible glad if he gets out with hiseyesight, 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 himthan ever. I told you I hedn’t heard an unkind word ag’in’ Rose senceshe come home from[Pg 158] Boston, an’ no more I hev till this evenin: Therewas two or three fellers talkin’ in the post-office, an’ they didn’tsuspicion I was settin’ on the steps outside the screen door. That JimJenkins, that Rose so everlastin’ly snubbed at the tavern dance, spokeup, an’ says he: ‘This time last year Rose Wiley could ’a’ hed thechoice of any man on the river, an’ now I bet ye she can’t get naryone.’

“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 likelightnin’; ‘so long as Stephen Waterman’s alive, Rose Wiley can havehim, for one; and that everybody’s welcome to know.’

“He spoke right out, loud an’ plain, jest as if he was readin’ theDeclaration of Independence. I expected the boys would everlastin’lypoke fun at him, but they never said a word. I guess his eyes flashed,[Pg 159]for he come out the screen door, slammin’ it after him, and stalked byme as if he was too worked up to notice anything or anybody. I didn’tfoiler him, for his long legs git over the ground too fast for me, butthinks 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 sicko’ movin’ it round when I sweep under my bed. And I shall be glad ifRose an’ Stephen do make it up, for Wealthy Ann Brooks’s gossip is toomuch for a Christian woman to stand.”

HOUSEBREAKING

Where was the pale Rose, the faded Rose, that crept noiselessly downfrom her room, wanting neither to speak nor to be spoken to? Nobody everknew. She vanished forever, and in her place a thing of sparkles anddimples flashed up the stairway and closed the door softly. There was astreak of moonshine lying across the bare floor, and a merry ghost, withdressing-gown held prettily away from bare feet, danced a gay fandangoamong the yellow moonbeams. There were breathless flights to the openwindow, and kisses thrown in the direction of the River Farm. There wereimpressive declamations at the looking-glass, where a radiant creaturepointed to her reflection[Pg 161] and whispered, “Worthless little pig, heloves you, after all!”

Then, when quiet joy had taken the place of mad delight, there was aswoop down upon the floor, an impetuous hiding of brimming eyes in thewhite counterpane, and a dozen impassioned promises to herself and tosomething higher than herself, to be a better girl.

The mood lasted, and deepened, and still Rose did not move. Her heartwas on its knees before Stephen’s faithful love, his chivalry, hisstrength. Her troubled spirit, like a frail boat tossed about in therapids, seemed entering a quiet harbor, where there were protectingshores and a still, still evening star. Her sails were all torn anddrooping, but the harbor was in sight, and the poor littleweather-beaten craft could rest in peace.

A period of grave reflection now ensued,—under the bedclothes, whereone could think better. Suddenly an inspiration seized[Pg 162] her,—aninspiration so original, so delicious, and above all so humble andpraiseworthy, that it brought her head from her pillow, and she sat boltupright, clapping her hands like a child.

“The very thing!” she whispered to herself gleefully. “It will takecourage, 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 inPortland—was ever such a chance?”

The same glowing Rose came downstairs, two steps at a time, nextmorning, bade her grandmother good-by with suspicious pleasure, and senther grandfather away on an errand which, with attendant conversation,would consume half the day. Then bundles after bundles and baskets afterbaskets were packed into the wagon,—behind the seat, beneath the seat,and finally under the lap-robe. She gave a dramatic flourish to thewhip, drove across[Pg 163] the bridge, went through Pleasant River village, andup the leafy road to the little house, stared the “To Let” signscornfully in the eye, alighted, and ran like a deer through the aislesof 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 weboth used to find it, then he hasn’t forgotten me—or anything,” thoughtRose.

The key was there, and Rose lifted it with a sob of gratitude. It wasbut five minutes’ work to carry all the bundles from the wagon to theback steps, and another five to lead old Tom across the road into thewoods 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 gavea leap almost of terror, and she started at the sound of her ownfootfall. Through the open door the sunlight streamed into the darkroom. She flew to tables and chairs,[Pg 164] and gave a rapid sweep of the handover their surfaces.

“He has been dusting here,—and within a few days, too,” she thoughttriumphantly.

The kitchen was perfection, as she always knew it would be, with onedoor opening to the shaded road and the other looking on the river;windows, too, framing the apple-orchard and the elms. She had chosen thefurniture, but how differently it looked now that it was actually inplace! The tiny shed had piles of split wood, with great boxes ofkindlings and shavings, all in readiness for the bride, who would do herown cooking. Who but Stephen would have made the very wood ready for awoman’s home-coming; and why had he done so much in May, when they werenot to be married until August? Then the door of the bedroom wasstealthily opened, and here Rose sat down and cried for joy and shameand hope and fear. The very flowered paper she had refused as too[Pg 165]expensive! How lovely it looked with the white chamber set! She broughtin her simple wedding outfit of blankets, bed-linen, and counterpanes,and folded them softly in the closet; and then for the rest of themorning she went from room to room, doing all that could remainundiscovered, even to laying a fire in the new kitchen stove.

This was the plan. Stephen must pass the house on his way from the RiverFarm to the bridge, where he was to join the river-drivers on Mondaymorning. She would be out of bed by the earliest peep of dawn, put onStephen’s favorite pink calico, leave a note for her grandmother, runlike a hare down her side of the river and up Stephen’s, steal into thehouse, open blinds and windows, light the fire, and set the kettleboiling. 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[Pg 166] and insulting “To Let” sign would be forcibly tweakedfrom the tree and thrown into the grass. She would then lay the table inthe kitchen, and make ready the nicest breakfast that two people eversat down to. And oh, would two people sit down to it; or would one gooff in a rage and the other die of grief and disappointment?

Then, having done all, she would wait and palpitate, and palpitate andwait, until Stephen came. Surely no property-owner in the universe coulddrive along a road, observe his corn leveled to the earth, his signremoved, his house open, and smoke issuing from his chimney, withoutgoing in to surprise the rogue and villain who could be guilty of suchvandalism.

And when he came in?

Oh, she had all day Sunday in which to forecast, with mingled dread andgladness and suspense, that all-important, all-decisive first moment!All day Sunday to frame[Pg 167] and unframe penitent speeches. All day Sunday!Would it ever be Monday? If so, what would Tuesday bring? Would the sunrise on happy Mrs. Stephen Waterman of Pleasant River, or on miserableMiss Rose Wiley of the Brier Neighborhood?

THE DREAM ROOM

Long ago, when Stephen was a boy of fourteen or fifteen, he had gonewith his father to a distant town to spend the night. After an earlybreakfast next morning his father had driven off for a businessinterview, and left the boy to walk about during his absence. Hewandered aimlessly along a quiet side street, and threw himself down onthe grass outside a pretty garden to amuse himself as best he could.

After a few minutes he heard voices, and, turning, peeped through thebars 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 setin the middle of the room. There was a cradle in a far corner, and aman[Pg 169] was seated at the table as though he might be waiting for hisbreakfast.

There is a kind of sentiment about the kitchen in New England, a kind ofsentiment not provoked by other rooms. Here the farmer drops in to spenda few minutes when he comes back from the barn or field on an errand.Here, in the great, clean, sweet, comfortable place, the busy housewifelives, sometimes rocking the cradle, sometimes opening and shutting theoven door, sometimes stirring the pot, darning stockings, paringvegetables, or mixing goodies in a yellow bowl. The children sit on thesteps, stringing beans, shelling peas, or hulling berries; the catsleeps on the floor near the wood-box; and the visitor feels exiled ifhe stays in sitting-room or parlor, for here, where the mother is alwaysbusy, is the heart of the farm-house.

There was an open back door to this kitchen, a door framed inmorning-glories, and the woman (or was she only girl?)[Pg 170] standing at thestove was pretty,—oh, so pretty in Stephen’s eyes! His boyish heartwent out to her on the instant. She poured a cup of coffee and walkedwith it to the table; then an unexpected, interesting thinghappened—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 prettywoman with a smile, and she stooped and kissed him.

Stephen was fifteen. As he looked, on the instant he became a man, witha man’s hopes, desires, ambitions. He looked eagerly, hungrily, and thescene 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 timeto time, and look at it again. When he first met Rose, he did not knowprecisely what she was to mean to him; but before long, when he closedhis eyes and the old familiar picture swam into his field of vision,behold, by some spiritual chemistry, the pretty[Pg 171] woman’s face had givenplace to that of Rose!

All such teasing visions had been sternly banished during this sorrowfulsummer, and it was a thoughtful, sober Stephen who drove along the roadon this mellow August morning. The dust was deep; the goldenrod wavedits imperial plumes, making the humble waysides gorgeous; the riverchattered and sparkled till it met the logs at the Brier Neighorhood,and then, lapsing into silence, flowed steadily under them till it founda vent for its spirits in the dashing and splashing of the falls.

Haying was over; logging was to begin that day; then harvesting; thenwood-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, caughthis eye and made him shiver. He was not[Pg 172] ready for winter; his heartstill craved the summer it had missed.

Hello! What was that? Corn-stalks prone on the earth? Sign torn down andlying 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 callyou!” and striding up the green pathway, flung open the kitchen door.

A forest of corn waving in the doorway at the back, morning-gloriesclambering round and round the window-frames, table with shining whitecloth, kettle humming and steaming, something bubbling in a pan on thestove, fire throwing out sweet little gleams of welcome through the opendamper. All this was taken in with one incredulous, rapturous twinkle ofan eye; but something else, too: Rose of all roses, Rose of the river,Rose of the world, standing behind a chair, her hand pressed againsther[Pg 173] heart, her lips parted, her breath coming and going! She wasglowing like a jewel, glowing with the extraordinary brilliancy thatemotion gives to some women. She used to be happy in a gay, sparklingway, like the shallow part of the stream as it chatters over whitepebbles and bright sands. Now it was a broad, steady, full happinesslike the deeps of the river under the sun.

“Don’t speak, Stephen, till you hear what I have to say. It takes a gooddeal of courage for a girl to do as I am doing; but I want to show howsorry I am, and it’s the only way.” She was trembling, and the wordscame faster and faster. “I’ve been very wrong and foolish, and made youvery unhappy, but I haven’t done what you would have hated most. Ihaven’t been engaged to Claude Merrill; he hasn’t so much as asked me. Iam here to beg you to forgive me, to eat breakfast with me, to drive meto the minister’s and marry me quickly, quickly, before anythinghappens[Pg 174] to prevent us, and then to bring me home here to live all thedays of my life. Oh, Stephen dear, honestly, honestly, you haven’t lostanything in all this long, miserable summer. I’ve suffered, too, and I’mbetter worth loving than I was. Will you take me back?”

Rose had a tremendous power of provoking and holding love, and Stephenof loving. His was too generous a nature for revilings and complaintsand reproaches.

The shores of his heart were strewn with the wreckage of the troubledsummer, but if the tide of love is high enough, it washes such thingsout 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 childwho has escaped the scolding it richly deserved, and who determines, forvery thankfulness’ sake, never to be naughty again.

“You don’t know what you’ve done for me, Stephen,” she whispered, withher face hidden on his shoulder. “I was just a common[Pg 175] little pricklyrosebush when you came along like a good gardener and ’grafted in’something better; the something better was your love, Stephen dear, andit’s made everything different. The silly Rose you were engaged to longago has disappeared somewhere; I hope you won’t be able to find herunder the new leaves.”

“She was all I wanted,” said Stephen.

“You thought she was,” the girl answered, “because you didn’t see theprickles, but you’d have felt them sometime. The old Rose was a selfishthing, 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 ofbachelor existence, had forgotten could exist; but before he broke hisfast he ran out to the wagon and served the astonished Alcestis with hiswedding refreshments then and there, bidding him drive back to the RiverFarm[Pg 176] and bring him a package that lay in the drawer of hisshaving-stand,--a package placed there when hot youth and love and longinghad inspired him to hurry on the marriage day.

“There’s an envelope, Alcestis,” he cried, “a long envelope way, wayback in the corner, and a small box on top of it. Bring them both, andmy wallet too, and if you find them all and get them to me safely youshall be bridesmaid and groomsman and best man and usher and maid ofhonor at a wedding, in less than an hour! Off with you! Drive straightand use the whip on Dolly!”

When he reentered the kitchen, flushed with joy and excitement, Rose putthe various good things on the table and he almost tremblingly took hisseat, fearing that contact with the solid wood might wake him from thisentrancing vision.

“I’d like to put you in your chair like a queen and wait on you,” hesaid with a soft[Pg 177] boyish stammer; “but I am too dazed with happiness tobe of any use.”

“It’s my turn to wait upon you, and I—Oh! how I love to have youdazed,” Rose answered. “I’ll be at the table presently myself; but wehave been housekeeping only three minutes, and we have nothing but thetin 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 fullof 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, restedhis head against her soft shoulder with a sigh of comfort, like that ofa tired child. He had waited for it ten years, and at last thedream-room had come true.

Related articles