Moderation and to Salmon Falls, where it dashes over the dam like
a young Niagara and hurtles, in a foamy torrent, through the
ragged defile cut between lofty banks of solid rock.

Widening out placidly for a moment's rest in the sunny reaches
near Pleasant Point, it gathers itself for a new plunge at Union
Falls, after which it speedily merges itself in the bay and is
fresh water no more.

At one of the falls on the Saco, the two little hamlets of
Edgewood and Riverboro nestle together at the bridge and make one
village. The stream is a wonder of beauty just here; a mirror of
placid loveliness above the dam, a tawny, roaring wonder at the
fall, and a mad, white-flecked torrent as it dashes on its way to
the ocean.

The river has seen strange sights in its time, though the history
of these two tiny villages is quite unknown to the great world
outside. They have been born, waxed strong, and fallen almost to
decay while Saco Water has tumbled over the rocks and spent
itself in its impetuous journey to the sea.

It remembers the yellow-moccasined Sokokis as they issued from
the Indian Cellar and carried their birchen canoes along the
wooded shore. It was in those years that the silver-skinned
salmon leaped in its crystal depths; the otter and the beaver
crept with sleek wet skins upon its shore; and the brown deer
came down to quench his thirst at its brink while at twilight the
stealthy forms of bear and panther and wolf were mirrored in its
glassy surface.