But the Saco all this time was meditating one of its surprises. The
snapping cold weather and the depth to which the water was frozen were
aiding it in its preparation for the greatest event of the season. On
a certain gray Saturday in March, after a week of mild temperature, it
began to rain as if, after months of snowing, it really enjoyed a new
form of entertainment. Sunday dawned with the very flood-gates of heaven
opening, so it seemed. All day long the river was rising under its miles
of 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 point
was set too high to be carried away by freshets, but at other villages
whose bridges were in less secure position there was little sleep and
much 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 out
into the open, pushing everything before it. All the able-bodied men in
the village turned out of bed, and with lanterns in hand began to clear
the stores and mills, for it seemed that everything near the river-banks
must go before that avalanche of ice.
Stephen and Rufus were there helping to save the property of their
friends and neighbors; Rose and Mite Shapley had stayed the night with
a friend, and all three girls were shivering with fear and excitement as
they stood near the bridge, watching the never-to-be-forgotten sight.
It is needless to say that the Crambry family was on hand, for whatever
instincts they may have lacked, the instinct for being on the spot
when anything was happening, was present in them to the most remarkable
extent. The town was supporting them in modest winter quarters somewhat
nearer than Killick to the center of civilization, and the first alarm
brought 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 to
wear it on!”
By the time the jam neared the falls it had grown with its
accumulations, until it was made up of tier after tier of huge ice
cakes, piled side by side and one upon another, with heaps of trees and
branches and drifting lumber holding them in place. Some of the blocks
stood erect and towered like icebergs, and these, glittering in the
lights of the twinkling lanterns, pushed solemnly forward, cracking,
crushing, and cutting everything in their way. When the great mass
neared the planing mill on the east shore the girls covered their eyes,
expecting to hear the crash of the falling building; but, impelled by
the force of some mysterious current, it shook itself ponderously,
and then, with one magnificent movement, slid up the river-bank, tier
following tier in grand confusion. This left a water way for the main
drift; the ice broke in every direction, and down, down, down, from
Bonnie Eagle and Moderation swept the harvest of the winter freezing. It
came thundering over the dam, bringing boats, farming implements, posts,
supports, and every sort of floating lumber with it; and cutting under
the flour mill, tipped it cleverly over on its side and went crashing on
its way down-river. At Edgewood it pushed colossal blocks of ice up the
banks into the roadway, piling them end upon end ten feet in air. Then,
tearing and rumbling and booming through the narrows, it covered the
intervale at Pleasant Point and made a huge ice bridge below Union
Falls, a bridge so solid that it stood there for days, a sight for all
the neighboring villages.
This exciting event would have forever set apart this winter from all
others in Stephen's memory, even had it not been also the winter when
he was building a house for his future wife. But afterwards, in looking
back on the wild night of the ice freshet, Stephen remembered that
Rose's manner was strained and cold and evasive, and that when he had
seen her talking with Claude Merrill, it had seemed to him that that
whippersnapper had looked at her as no honorable man in Edgewood ever
looked at an engaged girl. He recalled his throb of gratitude that
Claude lived at a safe distance, and his subsequent pang of remorse at
doubting, for an instant, Rose's fidelity.
So at length April came, the Saco was still high, turbid, and angry,
and the boys were waiting at Limington Falls for the “Ossipee drive”
to begin. Stephen joined them there, for he was restless, and the
river called him, as it did every spring. Each stubborn log that he
encountered gave him new courage and power of overcoming. The rush of
the water, the noise and roar and dash, the exposure and danger, all
made the blood run in his veins like new wine. When he came back to
the farm, all the cobwebs had been blown from his brain, and his first
interview with Rose was so intoxicating that he went immediately to
Portland, and bought, in a kind of secret penitence for his former
fears, 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. Wiley
said that pink was foolish and was always sure to fade; and the
border, being a mass of solid roses, was five cents a yard, virtually
a prohibitive price. Mr. Wiley said he “should hate to hev a spell of
sickness an' lay abed in a room where there was things growin' all over
the place.” He thought “rough-plastered walls, where you could lay an'
count the spots where the roof leaked, was the most entertainin'
in sickness.” Rose had longed for the lovely pattern, but had sided
dutifully with the prudent majority, so that it was with a feeling
of unauthorized and illegitimate joy 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, he
lighted two kerosene lamps and two candles, finding the effect, under
this illumination, almost too brilliant and beautiful for belief. Rose
should never see it now, he determined, until the furniture was in
place. They had already chosen the kitchen and bedroom things, though
they would not be needed for some months; but the rest was to wait until
summer, when there would be the hay-money to spend.
Stephen did not go back to the River Farm till one o'clock that night;
the pink bedroom held him in fetters too powerful to break. It looked
like the garden of Eden, he thought. To be sure, it was only fifteen
feet square; Eden might have been a little larger, possibly, but
otherwise the pink bedroom had every advantage. The pattern of roses
growing on a trellis was brighter than any flower-bed in June; and the
border--well, if the border had been five dollars a foot Stephen would
not have grudged the money when he saw the twenty running yards of rosy
bloom rioting under the white ceiling.
Before he blew out the last light he raised it high above his head and
took 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 growing
here with all the other flowers, and I shall always think of it as the
garden of Eden. I wonder, if I got the license and the ring and took her
by surprise, whether she'd be married in June instead of August? I could
be all ready if I could only persuade her.”
At this moment Stephen touched the summit of happiness; and it is a
curious coincidence that as he was dreaming in his garden of Eden, the
serpent, having just arrived at Edgewood, was sleeping peacefully at the
house of Mrs. Brooks.
It was the serpent's fourth visit that season, and he explained to
inquiring friends that his former employer had sold the business, and
that the new management, while reorganizing, had determined to enlarge
the 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 the
management on half, or even full, salary, while the services of the
“harmless doves” are dispensed with, and they are set free to flutter
where they will.