Stephen fell into her mood. "There's Squire Anderson coming down
crosswise and bumping everything in reach. You know he's always buying
lumber and logs without knowing what he is going to do with them. They
just lie and rot by the roadside. The boys always say that a toadstool
is the old Squire's 'mark' on a log."

"And that stout, clumsy one is Short Dennett.--What are you doing,
Stephen?"

"Only building a fence round this clump of harebells," Stephen replied.
"They've just got well rooted, and if the boys come skidding down the
bank with their spiked shoes, the poor things will never hold up their
heads again. Now they're safe.--Oh, look, Rose! There come the minister
and his wife!"

A portly couple of peeled logs, exactly matched in size, came
ponderously over the falls together, rose within a second of each other,
joined again, and swept under the bridge side by side.

"And--oh! oh!--Dr. and Mrs. Cram just after them! Isn't that funny?"
laughed Rose, as a very long, slender pair of pines swam down, as close
to each other as if they had been glued in that position. Rose thought,
as she watched them, who but Stephen would have cared what became of the
clump of delicate harebells. How gentle such a man would be to a woman!
How tender his touch would be if she were ill or in trouble!

Several single logs followed,--crooked ones, stolid ones, adventurous
ones, feeble swimmers, deep divers. Some of them tried to start a small
jam on their own account; others stranded themselves for good and all,
as Rose and Stephen sat there side by side, with little Dan Cupid for an
invisible third on the bench.

"There never was anything so like people," Rose repeated, leaning
forward excitedly. "And, upon my word, the minister and doctor couples
are still together. I wonder if they'll get as far as the fails at
Union? That would be an odd place to part, would n't it--Union?"

Stephen saw his opportunity, and seized it.

"There's a reason, Rose, why two logs go downstream better than one, and
get into less trouble. They make a wider path, create more force and a
better current. It's the same way with men and women. Oh, Rose, there
is n't a man in the world that's loved you as long, or knows how to love
you any better than I do. You're just like a white birch sapling, and
I'm a great, clumsy fir tree; but if you 'll only trust yourself to me,
Rose, I'll take you safely down-river."

Stephen's big hand closed on Rose's litt