ge-coaches resounded along the road.

Now children paddled with bare feet in the river's sandy coves and
shallows, and lovers sat on its alder-shaded banks and exchanged their
vows just where the shuffling bear was wont to come down and drink.

The Saco could remember the "cold year," when there was a black frost
every month of the twelve, and though almost all the corn along its
shores shrivelled on the stalk, there were two farms where the vapor
from the river saved the crops, and all the seed for the next season
came from the favored spot, to be known as "Egypt" from that day
henceforward.

Strange, complex things now began to happen, and the river played its
own part in some of these, for there were disastrous freshets, the
sudden breaking-up of great jams of logs, and the drowning of men who
were engulfed in the dark whirlpool below the rapids.

Caravans, with menageries of wild beasts, crossed the bridge now every
year. An infuriated elephant lifted the side of the old Edgewood Tavern
barn, and the wild laughter of the roistering rum-drinkers who were
tantalizing the animals floated down to the river's edge. The roar of
a lion, tearing and chewing the arm of one of the bystanders, and the
cheers of the throng when a plucky captain of the local militia thrust
a stake down the beast's throat,--these sounds displaced the former
war-whoop of the Indians and the ring of the axe in the virgin forests
along the shores.

There were days, and moonlight nights, too, when strange sights and
sounds of quite another nature could have been noted by the river as it
flowed under the bridge that united the two little villages.

Issuing from the door of the Riverboro Town House, and winding down
the hill, through the long row of teams and carriages that lined the
roadside, came a procession of singing men and singing women. Convinced
of sin, but entranced with promised pardon; spiritually intoxicated by
the glowing eloquence of the latter-day prophet they were worshipping,
the band of "Cochranites" marched down the dusty road and across the
bridge, dancing, swaying, waving handkerchiefs, and shouting hosannas.

God watched, and listened, knowing that there would be other prophets,
true and false, in the days to come, and other processions following
them; and the river watched and listened too, as it hurried on towards
the sea with its story of the present that was sometime to be the
history of the past.

When Jacob Cochran