hore,--the awfullest place to bung
that there is between this an' Biddeford,--and says he: 'Look here,
I've be'n boss on this river for twelve year, an' I'll be doggoned if
I'm goin' to be taught my business by any man!' 'This ain't no river,'
says I, 'as you'd know,' says I, 'if you'd ever lived on the Kennebec.'
'Pity you hedn't stayed on it,' says he. 'I wish to the land I hed,' says
I. An' then I come away, for my tongue's so turrible spry an' sarcustic
that I knew if I stopped any longer I should stir up strife. There's
some folks that'll set on addled aigs year in an' year out, as if there
wan't good fresh ones bein' laid every day; an' Lije Dennett's one of
'em, when it comes to river drivin'."

"There's lots o' folks as have made a good livin' by mindin' their own
business," observed the still sententious Mrs. Wiley, as she speared a
soda-biscuit with her fork.

"Mindin' your own business is a turrible selfish trade," responded her
husband loftily. "If your neighbor is more ignorant than what you
are,--partic'larly if he's as ignorant as Cooper's cow,--you'd ought,
as a Kennebec man an' a Christian, to set him on the right track, though
it's always a turrible risky thing to do."

Rose's grandfather was called, by the irreverent younger generation,
sometimes "Turrible Wiley" and sometimes "Old Kennebec," because of the
frequency with which these words appeared in his conversation. There
were not wanting those of late who dubbed him Uncle Ananias, for reasons
too obvious to mention. After a long, indolent, tolerably truthful, and
useless life, he had, at seventy-five, lost sight of the dividing line
between fact and fancy, and drew on his imagination to such an extent
that he almost staggered himself when he began to indulge in
reminiscence. He was a feature of the Edgewood "drive," being always
present during the five or six days that it was in progress, sometimes
sitting on the river-bank, sometimes leaning over the bridge, sometimes
reclining against the butt-end of a huge log, but always chewing
tobacco and expectorating to incredible distances as he criticized and
damned impartially all the expedients in use at the particular moment.

"I want to stay down by the river this afternoon," said Rose. "Ever so
many of the girls will be there, and all my sewing is done up. If
grandpa will leave the horse for me, I'll take the drivers' lunch to
them at noon, and bring the dishes back in time to wash them before
s