Time sped; men chained the river's turbulent forces and ordered
it to grind at the mill. Then houses and barns appeared along its
banks, bridges were built, orchards planted, forests changed into
farms, white-painted meetinghouses gleamed through the trees and
distant bells rang from their steeples on quiet Sunday mornings.

All at once myriads of great hewn logs vexed its downward course,
slender logs linked together in long rafts, and huge logs
drifting down singly or in pairs. Men appeared, running hither
and thither like ants, and going through mysterious operations
the reason for which the river could never guess: but the
mill-wheels turned, the great saws buzzed, the smoke from tavern
chimneys rose in the air, and the rattle and clatter of
stage-coaches resounded along the road.

Now children paddled with bare feet in the river's sandy coves
and shallows, and lovers sat on its alder-shaded banks and
exchanged their vows just where the shuffling bear was wont to
come down and drink.

The Saco could remember the "cold year," when there was a black
frost every month of the twelve, and though almost all the corn
along its shores shrivelled on the stalk, there were two farms
where the vapor from the river saved the crops, and all the seed
for the next season came from the favored spot, to be known as
"Egypt" from that day henceforward.

Strange, complex things now began to happen, and the river played
its own part in some of these, for there were disastrous