Homespun Tales

-fashioned pick-poles, straight, heavy levers without any "dog," and there were modern pick-poles and peaveys, for every river has its favorite equipment in these things.

top logs, those at the bottom would rise and make the task easier; sometimes the work would go on for hours with no perceptible progress, and Mr. Wi

e particular log which might be a key to the position. The boss would study the problem from variou

e to the doctor; "an' when they're consultin' they don't

d with the bit of curved wire on the end lifting off the jackstraws one by one without stirring the pile or making it tremble. When this occurred, you gave place to your opponent, who relinquished his turn to you when ill fortune descended upon him, the game, which was a kind of river-driving and jam-picking in miniature, being decided by the number of pieces captured and their value. No wonder that the under boss asked Rose's advice as to the key-log. She had a fairy's hand, and her cunning at deciding the pieces to be moved, and her skill at extricating and lifting them from the heap, were

e peered into one of the bean-pots, and seemed pleased that there was still something in its depths; then she gathered the fragments neatly together in a basket

le Boomshers could not be claimed as indigenous to the Saco valley, for this branch was an offshoot of a still larger tribe inhabiting a distant township. Its beginnings were shrouded in mystery. There was a French-Canadian ancestor somewhere, and a Gypsy or Indian grandmother. They had always in

raveled gentleman who once stayed over night at the Edgewood tavern, proclaimed it his opinion that Boomsher had been gradually corrupted from Beaumarchais. When he wrote the word on his visiting card and showed it to Mr. Wiley, Old Kennebec had replied, that in the judgment of a man who had lived in large places and seen a turrible lot o' life, such a name could never have been given either to a Chris

ne of his wood-lots. It was only a month before that he had found them all sitting outside their br

er?" he called o

d Alcestis Crambry. "Father's dead, a

he largest, "for his size," in the family; he who could tell his brothers Paul and Arcadus "by their looks"; he who knew a sour apple fr

specific rumors of the signs, symbols, and hieroglyphics used in educational institutions had reached him in the obscurity of his cranberry meadows. At all events, when confronted by the alphabet chart, whose huge black capitals were intended to capture the wandering eyes of the infant class, Alcestis exhibited unusual, almost unnatural, excitement. "That is 'A,' my boy," said the teacher genially, as she pointed to t

of six weeks she announced that a girl who could n't tell whether the clock was going "forrards or backw

social and intellectual advantages to be gained from the company present, but for the more solid compensation of a good meal. They all adore

waiting to be let out of the boom. The weight of the mass higher up and the force of the current wedged him in rather tightly, and when he had been

fate) was broken up, and the logs that composed it were started down-river. There remained now only the great side jam at Gray Rock. This had been allowed to grow, gathe

plished, the boom above the falls would be "turned out," and the

, cheered their favorites to the echo, while the drivers shouted to one another and watched the signs and

many a snare and pitfall. There was a certain ledge under the water, so artfully placed that every log s

hat you can reco'nize it by. Did ye ever hear tell o' George the Third, King of England, Alcestis, or ain't he known over to the crambry medders? Well, once upon a time men used to go through the forests over here an' slash a mark on the trunks o' the biggest trees. That was the royal sign, as you might say, an' meant that the tree was to be taken over to England to make masts an' yard-arms for the King's ships. What made me think of it now is that the King's mark was an arrer, an' it's an arrer that's on that there log I'm showin' ye. Well, sir, I seen it fust at Milliken's Mills a Monday.

was," echo

r stick to dry land. You set right down here while I go back a piece an' git the pi

he fraction of an inch. Rufus and Stephen joined the five men, and the augmented crew of seven were putting all their strength on the rope when a cry went up from the watchers on the bridge. The "dog" had loosened suddenly, and the men were flung violently to the ground. For a second they were stunned both by the surprise and

the danger, laughed audibly, but t

ken off his boots and was coasting down the slippery rocks behind him;

f I hed n't 'a' be'n so old, I'd 'a' jumped in myself, for you can't drownd a Wile

out over the water, almost touching its surface. The boy's clothes were admirably adapted to the situation, being full of enormous rents. In some way the end of the log caught in the rags of Alcestis's coat and held him just seconds enough to enable St

and seemed as bright as usual, with a kind of added swa

en you landed so turrible suddent on that rock

" responded Alcestis; a cryptic remark which so puzz