And thousands walk together there;
But Wisdom shows a narrow path,
With here and there a traveler.



III

The Edgewood "Drive"


Just where the bridge knits together the two little villages of Pleasant River
and Edgewood, the glassy mirror of the Saco broadens suddenly, sweeping over
the dam in a luminous torrent. Gushes of pure amber mark the middle of the
dam, with crystal and silver at the sides, and from the seething vortex
beneath the golden cascade the white spray dashes up in fountains. In the
crevices and hollows of the rocks the mad water churns itself into snowy
froth, while the foam-flecked torrent, deep, strong, and troubled to its
heart, sweeps majestically under the bridge, then dashes between wooded shores
piled high with steep masses of rock, or torn and riven by great gorges.

There had been much rain during the summer, and the Saco was very high, so on
the third day of the Edgewood drive there was considerable excitement at the
bridge, and a goodly audience of villagers from both sides of the river. There
were some who never came, some who had no fancy for the sight, some to whom it
was an old story, some who were too busy, but there were many to whom it was
the event of events, a never-ending source of interest.

Above the fall, covering the placid surface of the river, thousands of logs
lay quietly "in boom" until the "turning out" process, on the last day of the