Homespun Tales Part 3

The afternoon proved a lively one. In the first place, one of the younger men slipped into the water between two logs, part of a lot chained together waiting to be let out of the boom. The weight of the ma.s.s higher up and the force of the current wedged him in rather tightly, and when he had been "pried" out he declared that he felt like an apple after it had been squeezed in the cider-mill, so he drove home, and Rufus Waterman took his place.

Two hours' hard work followed this incident, and at the end of that time the "bung" that reached from the sh.o.r.e to Waterman's Ledge (the rock where Pretty Quick met his fate) was broken up, and the logs that composed it were started down-river. There remained now only the great side jam at Gray Rock. This had been allowed to grow, gathering logs as they drifted past, thus making higher water and a stronger current on the other side of the rock, and allowing an easier pa.s.sage for the logs at that point.

All was excitement now, for, this particular piece of work accomplished, the boom above the falls would be "turned out," and the river would once more be clear and clean at the Edgewood bridge.

Small boys, perching on the rocks with their heels hanging, hands and mouths full of red Astrakhan apples, cheered their favorites to the echo, while the drivers shouted to one another and watched the signs and signals of the boss, who could communicate with them only in that way, so great was the roar of the water.

The jam refused to yield to ordinary measures. It was a difficult problem, for the rocky river-bed held many a snare and pitfall. There was a certain ledge under the water, so artfully placed that every log striking under its projecting edges would wedge itself firmly there, attracting others by its evil example.

"That galoot-boss ought to hev shoved his crew down to that jam this mornin'," grumbled Old Kennebec to Alcestis Crambry, who was always his most loyal and attentive listener. "But he would n't take no advice, not if Pharaoh nor Boaz nor Herod nor Nicodemus come right out o' the Bible an' give it to him. The logs air contrary today. Sometimes they'll go along as easy as an old shoe, an' other times they'll do nothin' but bung, bung, bung! There's a log nestlin' down in the middle o' that jam that I've be'n watchin' for a week. It's a cur'ous one, to begin with; an' then it has a mark on it that you can reco'nize it by. Did ye ever hear tell o' George the Third, King of England, Alcestis, or ain't he known over to the crambry medders? Well, once upon a time men used to go through the forests over here an' slash a mark on the trunks o' the biggest trees. That was the royal sign, as you might say, an' meant that the tree was to be taken over to England to make masts an' yard-arms for the King's s.h.i.+ps. What made me think of it now is that the King's mark was an arrer, an' it's an arrer that's on that there log I'm showin'

ye. Well, sir, I seen it fust at Milliken's Mills a Monday. It was in trouble then, an' it's be'n in trouble ever sence. That's allers the way; there'll be one pesky, crooked, contrary, consarne'd log that can't go anywheres without gittin' into difficulties. You can yank it out an'

set it afloat, an' before you hardly git your d.o.g.g.i.n' iron off of it, it'll be snarled up agin in some new place. From the time it's chopped down to the day it gets to Saco, it costs the Comp'ny 'bout ten times its pesky valler as lumber. Now they've sent over to Benson's for a team of horses, an' I bate ye they can't git 'em. I wish i was the boss on this river, Alcestis."

"I wish I was," echoed the boy.

"Well, your head-fillin' ain't the right kind for a boss, Alcestis, an'

you'd better stick to dry land. You set right down here while I go back a piece an' git the pipe out o' my coat pocket. I guess nothin' ain't goin' to happen for a few minutes."

The surmise about the horses, unlike most of Old Kennebec's, proved to be true. Benson's pair had gone to Portland with a load of hay; accordingly the tackle was brought, the rope was adjusted to a log, and five of the drivers, standing on the river-bank, attempted to drag it from its intrenched position. It refused to yield the fraction of an inch. Rufus and Stephen joined the five men, and the augmented crew of seven were putting all their strength on the rope when a cry went up from the watchers on the bridge. The "dog" had loosened suddenly, and the men were flung violently to the ground. For a second they were stunned both by the surprise and by the shock of the blow, but in the same moment the cry of the crowd swelled louder. Alcestis Crambry had stolen, all unnoticed, to the rope, and had attempted to use his feeble powers for the common good. When the blow came he fell backward, and, making no effort to control the situation, slid over the bank and into the water.

The other Crambrys, not realizing the danger, laughed audibly, but there was no jeering from the bridge.

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

"Doggoned idjut!" exclaimed Old Kennebec, tearfully. "Wuth the hull fool-family! If I hed n't 'a' be'n so old, I'd 'a' jumped in myself, for you can't drownd a Wiley, not without you tie nail-kags to their head an' feet an' drop 'em in the falls."

Alcestis, who had neither brains, courage, nor experience, had, better still, the luck that follows the witless. He was carried swiftly down the current; but, only fifty feet away, a long, slender log, wedged between two low rocks on the sh.o.r.e, jutted out over the water, almost touching its surface. The boy's clothes were admirably adapted to the situation, being full of enormous rents. In some way the end of the log caught in the rags of Alcestis's coat and held him just seconds enough to enable Stephen to swim to him, to seize him by the nape of the neck, to lift him on the log, and thence to the sh.o.r.e. It was a particularly bad place for a landing, and there was nothing to do but to lower ropes and drag the drenched men to the high ground above.

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

"I wonder you hed n't stove your brains out, when you landed so turrible suddent on that rock at the foot of the bank," said Mr. Wiley to him.

"I should, but I took good care to light on my head," responded Alcestis; a cryptic remark which so puzzled Old Kennebec that he mused over it for some hours.

VI. Hearts And Other Hearts

Stephen had brought a change of clothes, as he had a habit of being ducked once at least during the day; and since there was a halt in the proceedings and no need of his services for an hour or two, he found Rose and walked with her to a secluded spot where they could watch the logs and not be seen by the people.

"You frightened everybody almost to death, jumping into the river,"

chided Rose.

Stephen laughed. "They thought I was a fool to save a fool, I suppose."

"Perhaps not as bad as that, but it did seem reckless."

"I know; and the boy, no doubt, would be better off dead; but so should I be, if I could have let him die."

Rose regarded this strange point of view for a moment, and then silently acquiesced in it. She was constantly doing this, and she often felt that her mental horizon broadened in the act; but she could not be sure that Stephen grew any dearer to her because of his moral alt.i.tudes.

"Besides," Stephen argued, "I happened to be nearest to the river, and it was my job."

"How do you always happen to be nearest to the people in trouble, and why is it always your 'job'?"

"If there are any rewards for good conduct being distributed, I'm right in line with my hand stretched out," Stephen replied, with meaning in his voice.

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

She had almost convinced herself that she was as much in love with Stephen Waterman as it was in her nature to be with anybody. He was handsome in his big way, kind, generous, temperate, well educated, and well-to-do. No fault could be found with his family, for his mother had been a teacher, and his father, though a farmer, a college graduate.

Stephen himself had had one year at Bowdoin, but had been recalled, as the head of the house, when his father died. That was a severe blow; but his mother's death, three years after, was a grief never to be quite forgotten. Rose, too, was the child of a gently bred mother, and all her instincts were refined. Yes; Stephen in himself satisfied her in all the larger wants of her nature, but she had an unsatisfied hunger for the world,--the world of Portland, where her cousins lived; or, better still, the world of Boston, of which she heard through Mrs. Wealthy Brooks, whose nephew Claude often came to visit her in Edgewood. Life on a farm a mile and a half distant from post-office and stores; life in the house with Rufus, who was rumored to be somewhat wild and unsteady,--this prospect seemed a trifle dull and uneventful to the trivial part of her, though to the better part it was enough. The better part of her loved Stephen Waterman, dimly feeling the richness of his nature, the tenderness of his affection, the strength of his character.

Rose was not dest.i.tute either of imagination or sentiment. She did not relish this constant weighing of Stephen in the balance: he was too good to be weighed and considered. She longed to be carried out of herself on a wave of rapturous a.s.sent, but something seemed to hold her back,--some seed of discontent with the man's environment and circ.u.mstances, some germ of longing for a gayer, brighter, more varied life. No amount of self-searching or argument could change the situation. She always loved Stephen more or less: more when he was away from her, because she never approved his collars nor the set of his s.h.i.+rt bosom; and as he naturally wore these despised articles of apparel whenever he proposed to her, she was always lukewarm about marrying him and settling down on the River Farm. Still, today she discovered in herself, with positive grat.i.tude, a warmer feeling for him than she had experienced before. He wore a new and becoming gray flannel s.h.i.+rt, with the soft turn-over collar that belonged to it, and a blue tie, the color of his kind eyes. She knew that he had shaved his beard at her request not long ago, and that when she did not like the effect as much as she had hoped, he had meekly grown a mustache for her sake; it did seem as if a man could hardly do more to please an exacting ladylove.

And she had admired him unreservedly when he pulled off his boots and jumped into the river to save Alcestis Crambry's life, without giving a single thought to his own.

And was there ever, after all, such a n.o.ble, devoted, unselfish fellow, or a better brother? And would she not despise herself for rejecting him simply because he was countrified, and because she longed to see the world of the fas.h.i.+on plates in the magazines?

"The logs are so like people!" she exclaimed as they sat down. "I could name nearly every one of them for somebody in the village. Look at Mite Shapley, that dancing little one, slipping over the falls and skimming along the top of the water, keeping out of all the deep places, and never once touching the rocks."

Stephen fell into her mood. "There's Squire Anderson coming down crosswise and b.u.mping everything in reach. You know he's always buying lumber and logs without knowing what he is going to do with them. They just lie and rot by the roadside. The boys always say that a toadstool is the old Squire's 'mark' on a log."

"And that stout, clumsy one is Short Dennett.--What are you doing, Stephen?"

"Only building a fence round this clump of harebells," Stephen replied.

"They've just got well rooted, and if the boys come skidding down the bank with their spiked shoes, the poor things will never hold up their heads again. Now they're safe.--Oh, look, Rose! There come the minister and his wife!"

A portly couple of peeled logs, exactly matched in size, came ponderously over the falls together, rose within a second of each other, joined again, and swept under the bridge side by side.

"And--oh! oh!--Dr. and Mrs. Cram just after them! Isn't that funny?"

laughed Rose, as a very long, slender pair of pines swam down, as close to each other as if they had been glued in that position. Rose thought, as she watched them, who but Stephen would have cared what became of the clump of delicate harebells. How gentle such a man would be to a woman!

How tender his touch would be if she were ill or in trouble!

Several single logs followed,--crooked ones, stolid ones, adventurous ones, feeble swimmers, deep divers. Some of them tried to start a small jam on their own account; others stranded themselves for good and all, as Rose and Stephen sat there side by side, with little Dan Cupid for an invisible third on the bench.

"There never was anything so like people," Rose repeated, leaning forward excitedly. "And, upon my word, the minister and doctor couples are still together. I wonder if they'll get as far as the fails at Union? That would be an odd place to part, would n't it--Union?"

Stephen saw his opportunity, and seized it.

"There's a reason, Rose, why two logs go downstream better than one, and get into less trouble. They make a wider path, create more force and a better current. It's the same way with men and women. Oh, Rose, there is n't a man in the world that's loved you as long, or knows how to love you any better than I do. You're just like a white birch sapling, and I'm a great, clumsy fir tree; but if you 'll only trust yourself to me, Rose, I'll take you safely down-river."

Stephen's big hand closed on Rose's little one; she returned its pressure softly and gave him the kiss that with her, as with him, meant a promise for all the years to come. The truth and pa.s.sion in the man had broken the girl's bonds for the moment. Her vision was clearer, and, realizing the treasures of love and fidelity that were being offered her, she accepted them, half unconscious that she was not returning them in kind. How is the belle of two villages to learn that she should "thank Heaven, fasting, for a good man's love"?

And Stephen? He went home in the dusk, not knowing whether his feet were touching the solid earth or whether he was treading upon rainbows.

Rose's pink calico seemed to brush him as he walked in the path that was wide enough only for one. His solitude was peopled again when he fed the cattle, for Rose's face smiled at him from the haymow; and when he strained the milk, Rose held the pans.