e bridge. It don't
do no good to brag afore your own women-folks; work goes consid'able
better'n stories at every place 'cept the loafers' bench at the tavern."

And the baffled raconteur, who had never done a piece of work cheerfully
in his life, dragged himself reluctantly to the shed, where, before
long, one could hear him moving the dasher up and down 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.

III. The Edgewood "Drive"

Just where the bridge knits together the two little villages of 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-flecked 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