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 centre 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