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.
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, 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 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, 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.
HE HAD CERTAINLY "TAKEN CHANCES"]
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 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 forvariety. 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 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 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.
"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!"
"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'."
Rose o' the River Page 3