The Garden of Eden

by Kate Douglas Wiggin

　　But the Saco all this time was meditating of its surprises. Thesnapping cold weather and the depth to which the water was frozenwere aiding it in its preparation for the greatest event of theseason. On a certain gray Saturday in March, after a week ofmild temperature, it began to rain as if, after months ofsnowing, it really enjoyed a new form of entertainment. Sundaydawned with the very flood-gates of heaven opening, so it seemed.All day long the river was rising under its miles of unbrokenice, rising at the threatening rate of four inches an hour.

　　Edgewood went to bed as usual that night, for the bridge at thatpoint was set too high to be carried away by freshets, but atother villages whose bridges were in less secure position therewas little sleep and much anxiety.

　　At midnight a cry was heard from the men watching at Milliken'sMills. The great ice jam had parted from Rolfe's Island and wasswinging out into the open, pushing everything before it. Allthe able-bodied men in the village turned out of bed, and withlanterns in hand began to clear the stores and mills, for itseemed that everything near the river banks must go before thatavalanche of ice.

　　Stephen and Rufus were there helping to save the property oftheir friends and neighbors; Rose and Mite Shapley had stayed thenight with a friend, and all three girls were shivering with fearand excitement as they stood near the bridge, watching thenever-to-be-forgtten sight. It is needless to say that theCrambry family was on hand, for whatever instincts they may havelacked, the instinct for being on the spot when anything washappening, was present in them to the most remarkable extent.The town was supporting them in modest winter quarters somewhatnearer than Killick to the centre of civilization, and the firstalarm brought them promptly to the scene, Mrs. Crambry remarkingat intervals: "If I'd known there'd be so many out I'd ought tohave worn my bunnit; but I ain't got no bunnit, an' if I had theysay I ain't got no head to wear it on!"

　　By the time the jam neared the falls it had grown with itsaccumulations, until it was made up of tier after tier of hugeice cakes, piled side by side and one upon another, with heaps oftrees and branches and drifting lumber holding them in place.Some of the blocks stood erect and towered like icebergs, andthese, glittering in the lights of the twinkling lanterns, pushedsolemnly forward, cracking, crushing, and cutting everything intheir way. When the great mass neared the planing mill on theeast shore the girls covered their eyes, expecting to hear thecrash of the falling building; but, impelled by the force of somemysterious current, it shook itself ponderously, and then, withone magnificent movement, slid up the river bank, tier followingtier in grand confusion. This left a water way for the maindrift; the ice broke in every direction, and down, down, down,from Bonnie Eagle and Moderation swept the harvest of the winterfreezing. It came thundering over the dam, bringing boats,farming implements, posts, supports, and every sort of floatinglumber with it; and cutting under the flour mill, tipped itcleverly over on its side and went crashing on its way downriver. At Edgewood it pushed colossal blocks of ice up the banksinto the roadway, piling them end upon end ten feet in air.Then, tearing and rumbling and booming through the narrows, itcovered the intervale at Pleasant Point and made a huge icebridge below Union Falls, a bridge so solid that it stood therefor days, a sight for all the neighboring villages.

　　This exciting event would have forever set apart this winter fromall others in Stephen's memory, even had it not been also thewinter when he was building a house for his future wife. Butafterwards, in looking back on the wild night of the ice freshet,Stephen remembered that Rose's manner was strained and cold andevasive, and that when he had seen her talking with ClaudeMerrill, it had seemed to him that that whippersnapper had lookedat her as no honorable man in Edgewood ever looked at an engagedgirl. He recalled his throb of gratitude that Claude lived at asafe 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, andangry, and the boys were waiting at Limington Falls for the"Ossipee drive" to begin. Stephen joined them there, for he wasrestless, and the river called him, as it did every spring. Eachstubborn log that he encountered gave him new courage and power ofovercoming. The rush of the water, the noise and roar and dash,the exposure and danger, all made the blood run in his veins likenew wine. When he came back to the farm, all the cobwebs had beenblown from his brain, and his first interview with Rose was sointoxicating that he went immediately to Portland, and bought, ina kind of secret penitence for his former fears, a pale pink-floweredwall-paper for the bedroom in the new home. It had once been voteddown by the entire advisory committee. Mrs. Wiley said pink wasfoolish and was always sure to fade; and the border, being a mass ofsolid roses, was five cents a yard, virtually a prohibitiveprice. Mr. Wiley said he "should hate to hev a spell of sicknessan' lay abed in a room where there was things growin' all overthe place." He thought "rough-plastered walls, where you couldlay an' count the spots where the roof leaked, was the mostentertainin' in sickness." Rose had longed for the lovelypattern, but had sided dutifully with the prudent majority, sothat it was with a feeling of unauthorized and illegitimate joythat 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 theeffect, under this illumination, almost too brilliant andbeautiful for belief. Rose should never see it now, hedetermined, until the furniture was in place. They had alreadychosen the kitchen and bedroom things, though they would not beneeded 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 thatnight; the pink bedroom held him in fetters too powerful tobreak. It looked like the garden of Eden, he thought. To besure, it was only fifteen feet square; Eden might have been alittle larger, possibly, but otherwise the pink bedroom had everyadvantage. The pattern of roses growing on a frellis wasbrighter than any flower-bed in June; and the border--well, ifthe border had been five dollars a foot Stephen would not havegrudged the money when he saw the twenty running yards of rosybloom rioting under the white ceiling.

　　Before he blew out the last light he raised it high above hishead and took one fond, final look. "It's the only place I eversaw," he thought, "that is pretty enough for her. She will lookjust as if she was growing here with all the other flowers, and Ishall always think of it as the garden of Eden. I wonder, if Igot the license and the ring and took her by surprise, whethershe'd be married in June instead of August? I could be all readyif I could only persuade her."

　　At this moment Stephen touched the summit of happiness; and it isa curious coincidence that as he was dreaming in his garden ofEden, the serpent, having just arrived at Edgewood, was sleepingpeacefully at the house of Mrs. Brooks.

　　It was the serpent's fourth visit that season, and he explainedto inquiring friends that his former employer had sold thebusiness, and that the new management, while reorganizing, haddetermined to enlarge the premises, the three clerks who had beenretained having two weeks' vacation with half pay.

　　It is extraordinary how frequently "wise serpents" are retainedby the management on half, or even full, salary, while theservices of the "harmless doves" are dispensed with, and they areset free to flutter where they will.