Old Kennebec

by Kate Douglas Wiggin

　　It was just seven o'clock that same morning when Rose Wileysmoothed the last wrinkle from her dimity counterpane, picked upa shred of corn-husk from the spotless floor under the bed,slapped a mosquito on the window-sill, removed all signs ofmurder with a moist towel, and before running down to breakfastcast a frowning look at her pincushion. Almira, otherwise"Mite," Shapley had been in her room the afternoon before anddisturbed with her careless hand the pattern of Rose's pins.They were kept religiously in the form of a Maltese cross; andif, while she was extricating one from her clothing, there hadbeen an alarm of fire, Rose would have stuck the pin in itsappointed place in the design, at the risk of losing her life.

　　Entering the kitchen with her light step, she brought the morningsunshine with her. The old people had already engaged indifferences of opinion, but they commonly suspended open warfarein her presence. There were the usual last things to be done forbreakfast, offices that belonged to her as her grandmother'sassistant. She took yesterday's soda biscuits out of the steamerwhere they were warming and softening; brought an apple pie and aplate of seed cakes from the pantry; settled the coffee with apiece of dried fish skin and an egg shell; and transferred somefried potatoes from the spider to a covered dish.

　　"Did you remember the meat, grandpa? We're all out," she said, asshe began buttoning a stiff collar around his reluctant neck.

　　"Remember? Land, yes! I wish't I ever could forgit anything!The butcher says he's 'bout tired o' travelin' over the countrylookin' for critters to kill, but if he finds anything he'll beup along in the course of a week. He ain't a real smart butcher,Cyse Higgins ain't.--Land, Rose, don't button that dickeyclean through my epperdummis! I have to sport starched collarsin this life on account o' you and your gran'mother bein' sochock full o' style; but I hope to the Lord I shan't have to wear'em in another world!"

　　"You won't," his wife responded with the snap of a dish towel, "or if you do,they'll wilt with the heat."

　　Rose smiled, but the soft hand with which she tied the neck-clothabout the old man's withered neck pacified his spirit, and hesmiled knowingly back at her as she took her seat at thebreakfast table spread near the open kitchen door. She was adazzling Rose, and, it is to be feared, a wasted one, for therewas no one present to observe her clean pink calico and the stillmore subtle note struck in the green ribbon which was tied roundher throat,--the ribbon that formed a sort of calyx, out ofwhich sprang the flower of her face, as fresh and radiant as ifit had bloomed that morning.

　　"Give me my coffee turrible quick," said Mr. Wiley; "I must bedown the bridge 'fore they start dog-warpin' the side jam."

　　"I notice you're always due at the bridge on churnin' days,"remarked his spouse, testily.

　　"'Taint me as app'ints drivin' dates at Edgewood," replied theold man. "The boys'll hev a turrible job this year. The logs airricked up jest like Rose's jackstraws; I never see'em so turriblericked up in all my exper'ence; an' Lije Dennett don' know nomore 'bout pickin' a jam than Cooper's cow. Turrible sot in hisways, too; can't take a mite of advice. I was tellin' him how togo to work on that bung that's formed between the gre't gray rockan' the shore,--the awfullest place to bung that there isbetween this an' Biddeford,--and says he: 'Look here, I'vebe'n boss on this river for twelve year, an' I'll be doggoned ifI'm goin' to be taught my business by any man!' 'This ain't noriver,' says I, 'as you'd know,' says I, 'if you'd ever lived onthe Kennebec.' 'Pity you hedn't stayed on it,' says he. 'I wishto the land I hed,'says I. An' then I come away, for mytongue's so turrible spry an' sarcustic that I knew if I stoppedany longer I should stir up strife. There's some folks that'llset on addled aigs year in an' year out, as if there wan't goodfresh ones bein' laid every day; an' Lije Dennett's one of 'em,when it comes to river drivin'."

　　"There's lots o' folks as have made a good livin' by mindin'their own business," observed the still sententious Mrs. Wiley,as she speared a soda-biscuit with her fork.

　　"Mindin' your own business is a turrible selfish trade," respondedher husband loftily. "If your neighbor is more ignorant than whatyou are,--partic'larly if he's as ignorant as Cooper's cow,--you'dought, as a Kennebec man an' a Christian, to set him on the righttrack, though it's always a turrible risky thing to do."

　　Rose's grandfather was called, by the irreverent youngergeneration, sometimes "Turrible Wiley" and sometimes "OldKennebec," because of the frequency with which these wordsappeared in his conversation. There were not wanting those oflate who dubbed him Uncle Ananias, for reasons too obvious tomention. After a long, indolent, tolerably truthful, and uselesslife, he had, at seventy-five, lost sight of the dividing linebetween fact and fancy, and drew on his imagination to such anextent that he almost staggered himself when he began to indulgein reminiscence. He was a feature of the Edgewood "drive," beingalways present during the five or six days that it was inprogress, sometimes sitting on the river-bank, sometimes leaningover the bridge, sometimes reclining against the butt-end of ahuge log, but always chewing tobacco and expectorating toincredible distances as he criticized and damned impartially allthe expedients in use at the particular moment.

　　"I want to stay down by the river this afternoon," said Rose."Ever so many of the girls will be there, and all my sewing isdone up. If grandpa will leave the horse for me, I'll take thedrivers' lunch to them at noon, and bring the dishes back in timeto wash them before supper."

　　"I suppose you can go, if the rest do," said her grandmother,"though it's an awful lazy way of spendin' an afternoon. When Iwas a girl there was no such dawdlin' goin' on, I can tell you.Nobody thought o' lookin' at the river in them days; there wasn'ttime."

　　"But it's such fun to watch the logs!" Rose exclaimed. "Next todancing, the greatest fun in the world."

　　"'Specially as all the young men in town will be there, watchin',too," was the grandmother's reply. "Eben Brooks an' Richard Beangot home yesterday with their doctors' diplomas in their pockets.Mrs. Brooks says Eben stood forty-nine in a class o' fifty-five,an' seemed consid'able proud of him; an' I guess it is the firsttime he ever stood anywheres but at the foot. I tell you whenthese fifty-five new doctors git scattered over the countrythere'll be consid'able many folks keepin' house under ground.Dick Bean's goin' to stop a spell with Rufe an' Steve Waterman.That'll make one more to play in the river."

　　"Rufus ain't hardly got his workin' legs on yit," allowedMr.Wiley, "but Steve's all right. He's a turrible smart driver,an' turrible reckless, too. He'll take all the chances there is,though to a man that's lived on the Kennebec there ain't what canrightly be called any turrible chances on the Saco."

　　"He'd better be 'tendin' to his farm," objected Mrs. Wiley.

　　"His hay is all in," Rose spoke up quickly, "and he only helpson the river when the farm work isn't pressing. Besides, thoughit's all play to him, he earns his two dollars and a half a day."

　　"He don't keer about the two and a half," said her grandfather."He jest can't keep away from the logs. There's some that can't.When I first moved here from Gard'ner, where the climate neversuited me"--

　　"The climate of any place where you hev regular work never didan' never will suit you," remarked the old man's wife; but theinterruption received no comment: such mistaken views of hischaracter were too frequent to make any impression.

　　"As I was sayin', Rose," he continued, "when we first moved herefrom Gard'ner, we lived neighbor to the Watermans. Steve an'Rufus was little boys then, always playin' with a couple o' wildcousins o' theirn, consid'able older. Steve would scare hismother pretty nigh to death stealin' away to the mill to ride onthe 'carriage,''side o' the log that was bein' sawed, hitchin'clean out over the river an' then jerkin' back 'most into thejaws o' the machinery."

　　"He never hed any common sense to spare, even when he was a youngone," remarked Mrs. Wiley; " and I don't see as all the 'cademyeducation his father throwed away on him has changed him much."And with this observation she rose from the table and went to thesink.

　　"Steve ain't nobody's fool," dissented the old man; "but he'skind o' daft about the river. When he was little he was allersbuildin' dams in the brook, an' sailin' chips, an' runnin' on thelogs; allers choppin' up stickins an' raftin' 'em together in thepond. I cal'late Mis' Waterman died consid'able afore her time,jest from fright, lookin' out the winders and seein' her boysslippin' between the logs an' gittin' their daily dousin'. Shecould n't understand it, an' there's a heap o' things women-folksnever do an' never can understand,--jest because they airwomen-folks."

　　"One o' the things is men, I s'pose," interrupted Mrs. Wiley.

　　"Men in general, but more partic'larly husbands," assented OldKennebec; "howsomever, there's another thing they don't an' can'tnever take in, an' that's sport. Steve does river drivin' as hewould horseracin' or tiger-shootin' or tight-rope dancin'; an' healways did from a boy. When he was about twelve or fifteen, heused to help the river-drivers spring and fall, reg'lar. Hecouldn't do nothin' but shin up an' down the rocks after hammersan' hatchets an' ropes, but he was turrible pleased with his job.'Stepanfetchit,' they used to call him them days,--Stephanfetchit Waterman."

　　"Good name for him yet," came in acid tones from the sink. "He'sstill steppin' an' fetchin', only it's Rose that's doin' thedrivin' now."

　　"I'm not driving anybody, that I know of," answered Rose, withheightened color, but with no loss of her habitual self-command.

　　"Then, when he graduated from errants," went on the crafty oldman, who knew that when breakfast ceased, churning must begin,"Steve used to get seventy-five cents a day helpin' clear up theriver--if you can call this here silv'ry streamlet a river.He'd pick off a log here an' there an' send it afloat, an' digout them that hed got ketched in the rocks, and tidy up the banksjest like spring house-cleanin'. If he'd hed any kind of a boss,an' hed be'n trained on the Kennebec, he'd 'a' made a turriblesmart driver, Steve would."

　　"He'll be drownded, that's what'll become o' him," prophesiedMrs. Wiley; "'specially if Rose encourages him in such sillyfoolishness as ridin' logs from his house down to ourn, darknights."

　　"Seein' as how Steve built ye a nice pig pen last month, 'pearsto me you might have a good word for him now an' then, mother,"remarked Old Kennebec, reaching for his second piece of pie.

　　"I wa'n't a mite deceived by that pig pen, no more'n I was by JedTowle's hen coop, nor Ivory Dunn's well-curb, nor Pitt Packard'sshed-steps. If you hed ever kep' up your buildin's yourself,Rose's beaux wouldn't hev to do their courtin' with carpenters'tools."

　　"It's the pigpen an' the hencoop you want to keep your eye on,mother, not the motives of them as made 'em. It's turribleonsettlin' to inspeck folks' motives too turrible close."

　　"Riding a log is no more to Steve than riding a horse, so hesays," interposed Rose, to change the subject; "but I tell himthat a horse doesn't revolve under you, and go sideways at thesame time that it is going forwards."

　　"Log-ridin' ain't no trick at all to a man of sperit," said Mr.Wiley. "There's a few places in the Kennebec where the water'stoo shaller to let the logs float, so we used to build a flume,an' the logs would whiz down like arrers shot from a bow. Theboys used to collect by the side o' that there flume to see meride a log down, an' I've watched 'em drop in a dead faint when Ispun by the crowd; but land! you can't drownd some folks, notwithout you tie nail-kegs to their head an' feet an' drop 'em inthe falls; I 've rid logs down the b'ilin'est rapids o' theKennebec an' never lost my head. I remember well the year o' thegre't freshet, I rid a log from"--

　　"There, there, father, that'll do," said Mrs. Wiley, decisively."I'll put the cream in the churn, an' you jest work off some o'your steam by bringin' the butter for us afore you start for thebridge. It don't do no good to brag afore your own womenfolks;work goes consid'able better'n stories at every place 'cept theloafers' bench at the tavern."

　　And the baffled raconteur, who had never done a piece of workcheerfully in his life, dragged himself reluctantly to the shed,where, before long, one could hear him moving the dasher up anddown sedately to his favorite "churning tune" of--

　　Broad is the road that leads to death,And thousands walk together there;But Wisdom shows a narrow path,With here and there a traveler.