Rose o' the River - Kate Wiggin 2 стр.

Roses grandfather was called, by the irreverent younger generation, sometimes Turrible Wiley and sometimes Old Kennebec, because of the frequency with which these words appeared in his conversation. There were not wanting those of late who dubbed him Uncle Ananias, for reasons too obvious to mention. After a long, indolent, tolerably truthful, and useless life, he had, at seventy-five, lost sight of the dividing line between fact and fancy, and drew on his imagination to such an extent that he almost staggered himself when he began to indulge in reminiscence. He was a feature of the Edgewood drive, being always present during the five or six days that it was in progress, sometimes sitting on the river-bank, sometimes leaning over the bridge, sometimes reclining against the butt-end of a huge log, but always chewing tobacco and expectorating to incredible distances as he criticized and damned impartially all the expedients in use at the particular moment.

I want to stay down by the river this afternoon, said Rose. Ever so many of the girls will be there, and all my sewing is done up. If grandpa will leave the horse for me, Ill take the drivers lunch to them at noon, and bring the dishes back in time to wash them before supper.

I suppose you can go, if the rest do, said her grandmother, though its an awful lazy way of spendin an afternoon. When I was a girl there was no such dawdlin goin on, I can tell you. Nobody thought o lookin at the river in them days; there wasnt time.

But its 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 grandmothers reply. Eben Brooks an Richard Bean got home yesterday with their doctors diplomas in their pockets. Mrs. Brooks says Eben stood forty-nine in a class o fifty-five, an seemed considable proud of him; an I guess it is the first time he ever stood anywheres but at the foot. I tell you when these fifty-five new doctors git scattered over the country therell be considable many folks keepin house under ground. Dick Beans goin to stop a spell with Rufe an Steve Waterman. Thatll make one more to play in the river.

Rufus aint hardly got his workin legs on yit, allowed Mr. Wiley, but Steves all right. Hes a turrible smart driver, an turrible reckless, too. Hell take all the chances there is, though to a man thats lived on the Kennebec there aint what can rightly be called any turrible chances on the Saco.

Hed better be tendin to his farm, objected Mrs. Wiley.

His hay is all in, Rose spoke up quickly, and he only helps on the river when the farm work isnt pressing. Besides, though its all play to him, he earns his two dollars and a half a day.

He dont keer about the two and a half, said her grandfather. He jest cant keep away from the logs. Theres some that cant. When I first moved here from Gardner, where the climate never suited me

The climate of any place where you hev regular work never did an never will suit you, remarked the old mans wife; but the interruption received no comment: such mistaken views of his character were too frequent to make any impression.

As I was sayin, Rose, he continued, when we first moved here from Gardner, we lived neighbor to the Watermans. Steve an Rufus was little boys then, always playin with a couple o wild cousins o theirn, considable older. Steve would scare his mother pretty nigh to death stealin away to the mill to ride on the carriage, side o the log that was bein sawed, hitchin clean out over the river an then jerkin back most into the jaws o the machinery.

He never hed any common sense to spare, even when he was a young one, remarked Mrs. Wiley; and I dont see as all the cademy education his father throwed away on him has changed him much. And with this observation she rose from the table and went to the sink.

Steve aint nobodys fool, dissented the old man; but hes kind o daft about the river. When he was little he was allers buildin dams in the brook, an sailin chips, an runnin on the logs; allers choppin up stickins an raftin em together in the pond. I callate Mis Waterman died considable afore her time, jest from fright, lookin out the winders and seein her boys slippin between the logs an gittin their daily dousin. She couldnt understand it, an theres a heap o things women-folks never do an never can understand,jest because they air women-folks.

One o the things is men, I spose, interrupted Mrs. Wiley.

Men in general, but more particlarly husbands, assented Old Kennebec; howsomever, theres another thing they dont an cant never take in, an thats sport. Steve does river drivin as he would horseracin or tiger-shootin or tight-rope dancin; an he always did from a boy. When he was about twelve or fifteen, he used to help the river-drivers spring and fall, reglar. He couldnt do nothin but shin up an down the rocks after hammers an hatchets an ropes, but he was turrible pleased with his job. Stepanfetchit, they used to call him them days,Stephanfetchit Waterman.

Good name for him yet, came in acid tones from the sink. Hes still steppin an fetchin, only its Rose thats doin the drivin now.

Im not driving anybody, that I know of, answered Rose, with heightened color, but with no loss of her habitual self-command.

Then, when he graduated from errants, went on the crafty old man, who knew that when breakfast ceased, churning must begin, Steve used to get seventy-five cents a day helpin clear up the riverif you can call this here silvry streamlet a river. Hed pick off a log here an there an send it afloat, an dig out them that hed got ketched in the rocks, and tidy up the banks jest like spring house-cleanin. If hed hed any kind of a boss, an hed ben trained on the Kennebec, hed a made a turrible smart driver, Steve would.

Hell be drownded, thats whatll become o him, prophesied Mrs. Wiley; specially if Rose encourages him in such silly foolishness as ridin logs from his house down to ourn, dark nights.

Seein as how Steve built ye a nice pig pen last month, pears to me you might have a good word for him now an then, mother, remarked Old Kennebec, reaching for his second piece of pie.

I want a mite deceived by that pig pen, no moren I was by Jed Towles hen coop, nor Ivory Dunns well-curb, nor Pitt Packards shed-steps. If you hed ever kep up your buildins yourself, Roses beaux wouldnt hev to do their courtin with carpenters tools.

Its the pigpen an the hencoop you want to keep your eye on, mother, not the motives of them as made em. Its turrible onsettlin to inspeck folks motives too turrible close.

Riding a log is no more to Steve than riding a horse, so he says, interposed Rose, to change the subject; but I tell him that a horse doesnt revolve under you, and go sideways at the same time that it is going forwards.

Log-ridin aint no trick at all to a man of sperit, said Mr. Wiley. Theres a few places in the Kennebec where the waters too shaller to let the logs float, so we used to build a flume, an the logs would whiz down like arrers shot from a bow. The boys used to collect by the side o that there flume to see me ride a log down, an Ive watched em drop in a dead faint when I spun by the crowd; but land! you cant drownd some folks, not without you tie nail-kags to their head an feet an drop em in the falls; I ve rid logs down the bilinest rapids o the Kennebec an never lost my head. I remember well the year o the gret freshet, I rid a log from

There, there, father, thatll do, said Mrs. Wiley, decisively. Ill put the cream in the churn, an you jest work off some o your steam by bringin the butter for us afore you start for the bridge. It dont do no good to brag afore your own women-folks; work goes considable bettern stories at every place cept the loafers bench at the tavern.

And the baffled raconteur, who had never done a piece of work cheerfully in his life, dragged himself reluctantly to the shed, where, before long, one could hear him moving the dasher up and down sedately to his favorite churning tune of

THE EDGEWOOD DRIVE

Just where the bridge knits together the two little villages of Pleasant River and Edgewood, the glassy mirror of the Saco broadens suddenly, sweeping over the dam in a luminous torrent. Gushes of pure amber mark the middle of the dam, with crystal and silver at the sides, and from the seething vortex beneath the golden cascade the white spray dashes up in fountains. In the crevices and hollows of the rocks the mad water churns itself into snowy froth, while the foam-flecked torrent, deep, strong, and troubled to its heart, sweeps majestically under the bridge, then dashes between wooded shores piled high with steep masses of rock, or torn and riven by great gorges.

There had been much rain during the summer, and the Saco was very high, so on the third day of the Edgewood drive there was considerable excitement at the bridge, and a goodly audience of villagers from both sides of the river. There were some who never came, some who had no fancy for the sight, some to whom it was an old story, some who were too busy, but there were many to whom it was the event of events, a never-ending source of interest.

Above the fall, covering the placid surface of the river, thousands of logs lay quietly in boom until the turning out process, on the last day of the drive, should release them and give them their chance of display, their brief moment of notoriety, their opportunity of interesting, amusing, exciting, and exasperating the onlookers by their antics.

Heaps of logs had been cast up on the rocks below the dam, where they lay in hopeless confusion, adding nothing, however, to the problem of the moment, for they too bided their time. If they had possessed wisdom, discretion, and caution, they might have slipped gracefully over the falls and, steering clear of the hidden ledges (about which it would seem they must have heard whispers from the old pine trees along the river), have kept a straight course and reached their destination without costing the Edgewood Lumber Company a small fortune. Or, if they had inclined toward a jolly and adventurous career, they could have joined one of the various jams or bungs, stimulated by the thought that any one of them might be a key-log, holding for a time the entire mass in its despotic power. But they had been stranded early in the game, and, after lying high and dry for weeks, would be picked off one by one and sent down-stream.

In the tumultuous boil, the foaming hubbub and flurry at the foot of the falls, one enormous peeled log wallowed up and down like a huge rhinoceros, greatly pleasing the children by its clumsy cavortings. Some conflict of opposing forces kept it ever in motion, yet never set it free. Below the bridge were always the real battle-grounds, the scenes of the first and the fiercest conflicts. A ragged ledge of rock, standing well above the yeasty torrent, marked the middle of the river. Stephen had been stranded there once, just at dusk, on a stormy afternoon in spring. A jam had broken under the men, and Stephen, having taken too great risks, had been caught on the moving mass, and, leaping from log to log, his only chance for life had been to find a footing on Gray Rock, which was nearer than the shore.

Rufus was ill at the time, and Mrs. Waterman so anxious and nervous that processions of boys had to be sent up to the River Farm, giving the frightened mother the latest bulletins of her sons welfare. Luckily, the river was narrow just at the Gray Rock, and it was a quite possible task, though no easy one, to lash two ladders together and make a narrow bridge on which the drenched and shivering man could reach the shore. There were loud cheers when Stephen ran lightly across the slender pathway that led to safetyran so fast that the ladders had scarce time to bend beneath his weight. He had certainly taken chances, but when did he not do that? The loggers life is one of moving accidents by flood and field, and Stephen welcomed with wildqq exhilaration every hazard that came in his path. To him there was never a dull hour from the moment that the first notch was cut in the tree (for he sometimes joined the boys in the lumber camp just for a frolic) till the later one when the hewn log reached its final destination. He knew nothing of tooling a four-in-hand through narrow lanes or crowded thoroughfares,nothing of guiding a horse over the hedges and through the pitfalls of a stiff bit of hunting country; his steed was the rearing, plunging, kicking log, and he rode it like a river god.

The crowd loves daring, and so it welcomed Stephen with braves, but it knew, as he knew, that he was only doing his duty by the Company, only showing the Saco that man was master, only keeping the old Waterman name in good repute.

Ye cant drownd some folks, Old Kennebec had said, as he stood in a group on the shore; not without you tie sand-bags toem an drop em in the Great Eddy. Im the same kind; I remember when I was stranded on jest sech a rock in the Kennebec, only they left me there all night for dead, an I had to swim the rapids when it come daylight.

Were well acquainted with that rock and them rapids, exclaimed one of the river-drivers, to the delight of the company.

Rose had reason to remember Stephens adventure, for he had clambered up the bank, smiling and blushing under the hurrahs of the boys, and, coming to the wagon where she sat waiting for her grandfather, had seized a moment to whisper: Did you care whether I came across safe, Rose? Say you did!

Stephen recalled that question, too, on this August morning; perhaps because this was to be a red-letter day, and sometime, when he had a free moment,sometime before supper, when he and Rose were sitting apart from the others, watching the logs,he intended again to ask her to marry him. This thought trembled in him, stirring the deeps of his heart like a great wave, almost sweeping him off his feet when he held it too close and let it have full sway. It would be the fourth time that he had asked Rose this question of all questions, but there was no perceptible difference in his excitement, for there was always the possible chance that she might change her mind and say yes, if only for variety. Wanting a thing continuously, unchangingly, unceasingly, year after year, he thought,longing to reach it as the river longed to reach the sea,such wanting might, in course of time, mean having.

Rose drove up to the bridge with the mens luncheon, and the under boss came up to take the baskets and boxes from the back of the wagon.

Weve had a reglar tussle this mornin, Rose, he said. The logs are determined not to move. Ike Billings, thats the hansomest and fluentest all-round swearer on the Saco, has tried his best on the side jam. Hes all out o cuss-words and there haint a log budged. Now, stid o dog-warpin this afternoon, an lettin the oxen haul off all them stubborn logs by main force, were goin to ask you to set up on the bank and smile at the jam. Land! she can do it! says Ike a minute ago. When Rose starts smilin, he says, there aint a jam nor a bung in me that dont melt like wax and jest float right off same as the logs do when they get into quiet, sunny water.