cial heed to the spring flood;
only the children ran down to the banks to watch the raging river
and all that it carried along.

But timber and ice floes were not the only things that went
floating by! Presently the stream came driving with washing piers
and bath houses, then with boats and wreckage of bridges.

"It will soon be taking our bridge, too!" the children exclaimed.
They felt a bit uneasy, but were glad at the same time that
something so extraordinary was likely to happen.

Suddenly a huge pine, root and branch, came sailing past, followed
by a white-stemmed aspen tree, its spreading branches thick with
buds which had swelled from being so long in the water. Close upon
the trees came a little hay shed, bottom upward; it was still full
of hay and straw, and floated on its roof like a boat on its keel.

But when things of that sort began to drift past, the grown-ups,
too, bestirred themselves. They realized now that the river had
overflowed its banks somewhere up north, and hurried down to the
shores with poles and boat hooks, to haul up on land buildings and
furniture.

At the northern end of the parish, where the houses were scattered
and people were scarce, Ingmar Ingmarsson alone was standing on the
bank, gazing out at the river. He was then almost sixty, and looked
even older. His face was weatherbeaten and furrowed, his figure
bent; he appeared to be as awkward and helpless as ever. He stood
leaning on a long, heavy boat hook, his dull, sleepy-looking eyes
fixed on the water. The river raged and foamed, arrogantly marching
past with all that it had matched from the shores. It was as if it
were deriding the peasant for his slowness. "Oh, you're not the one
to wrest from me any of the things I'm carrying away!" it seemed to
say.

Ingmar Ingmarsson made no attempt to rescue any of the floating
bridges or boat hulls that passed quite close to the bank. "All
that will be seen to down at the village," he thought. Not for a
second did his gaze wander from the river. He took note of
everything that drifted past. All at once he sighted something
bright and yellow floating on some loosely nailed boards quite a
distance up the river. "Ah, this is what I have been expecting all
along!" he said aloud. At first he could not quite make out what
the yellow was; but for one who knew how little children in
Dalecarlia are dressed it was easy to guess. "Those must be
youngsters who were out on a washing pier playing