nor scholars could discover whether he was agreeably surprised or disappointed in the letter,—whether he had expected, if he ever encountered it, to find it writhing in coils on the floor of a cage, or whether it simply bore no resemblance to the ideal already established in his mind.

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

[Pg 59]

The Crambrys had daily walked the five or six miles from their home to the Edgewood bridge during the progress of the drive, not only for the social and intellectual advantages to be gained from the company present, but for the more solid compensation of a good meal. They all adored Rose, partly because she gave them food, and partly because she was sparkling and pretty and wore pink dresses that caught their dull eyes.

The afternoon proved a lively one. In the first place, one of the younger men slipped into the water between two logs, part of a lot chained together waiting to[Pg 60] be let out of the boom. The weight of the mass higher up and the force of the current wedged him in rather tightly, and when he had been “pried” out he declared that he felt like an apple after it had been squeezed in the cider-mill, so he drove home, and Rufus Waterman took his place.

[Pg 60]

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

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

[Pg 61]

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 

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