"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 supper."

"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."