upper."

"I suppose you can go, if the rest do," said her grandmother, "though
it's an awful lazy way of spendin' an afternoon. When I was a girl there
was no such dawdlin' goin' on, I can tell you. Nobody thought o' lookin'
at the river in them days; there wasn't time."

"But it's such fun to watch the logs!" Rose exclaimed. "Next to dancing,
the greatest fun in the world."

"'Specially as all the young men in town will be there, watchin', too,"
was the grandmother's reply. "Eben Brooks an' Richard Bean got home
yesterday with their doctors' diplomas in their pockets. Mrs. Brooks
says Eben stood forty-nine in a class o' fifty-five, an' seemed
consid'able proud of him; an' I guess it is the first time he ever stood
anywheres but at the foot. I tell you when these fifty-five new doctors
git scattered over the country there'll be consid'able many folks
keepin' house under ground. Dick Bean's goin' to stop a spell with Rufe
an' Steve Waterman. That'll make one more to play in the river."

"Rufus ain't hardly got his workin' legs on yit," allowed Mr. Wiley, "but
Steve's all right. He's a turrible smart driver, an' turrible reckless,
too. He'll take all the chances there is, though to a man that's lived
on the Kennebec there ain't what can rightly be called any turrible
chances on the Saco."

"He'd better be 'tendin' to his farm," objected Mrs. Wiley.

[Illustration: "HE'S A TURRIBLE SMART DRIVER"]

"His hay is all in," Rose spoke up quickly, "and he only helps on the
river when the farm work isn't pressing. Besides, though it's all play
to him, he earns his two dollars and a half a day."

"He don't keer about the two and a half," said her grandfather. "He jest
can't keep away from the logs. There's some that can't. When I first
moved here from Gard'ner, where the climate never suited me"--

"The climate of any place where you hev regular work never did an' never
will suit you," remarked the old man's wife; but the interruption
received no comment: such mistaken views of his character were too
frequent to make any impression.

"As I was sayin', Rose," he continued, "when we first moved here from
Gard'ner, we lived neighbor to the Watermans. Steve an' Rufus was little
boys then, always playin' with a couple o' wild cousins o' theirn,
consid'able older. Steve would scare his mother pretty nigh to death
stealin' away to the mill to ride on the 'carriage,' 'side o' the log
that was bein' sawed, hitchin' clean out over