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-decked 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
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