with maple, beech, sycamore, and birch; it fell tempestuously over dams and
fought its way between rocky cliffs crowned with stately firs. It rolled past
forests of pine and hemlock and spruce, now gentle, now terrible; for there is
said to be an Indian curse upon the Saco, whereby, with every great sun, the
child of a paleface shall be drawn into its cruel depths. Lashed into fury by
the stony reefs that impeded its progress, the river looked now sapphire, now
gold, now white, now leaden gray; but always it was hurrying, hurrying on its
appointed way to the sea.

After feasting his eyes and filling his heart with a morning draught of
beauty, Stephen went in from the porch and, pausing at the stairway, called in
stentorian tones: "Get up and eat your breakfast, Rufus! The boys will be
picking the side jams today, and I'm going down to work on the logs. If you
come along, bring your own pick-pole and peavey." Then, going to the kitchen
pantry, he collected, from the various shelves, a pitcher of milk, a loaf of
bread, half an apple pie, and a bowl of blueberries, and, with the easy
methods of a household unswayed by feminine rule, moved toward a seat under an
apple tree and took his morning meal in great apparent content. Having
finished, and washed his dishes with much more thoroughness than is common to
unsuperintended man, and having given Rufus the second call to breakfast with
the vigor and acrimony that usually mark that unpleasant performance, he
strode to a high point on the riverbank and, shading his eyes with his hand,
gazed steadily downstream.

Patches of green fodder and blossoming potatoes melted into soft fields that
had been lately mown, and there were glimpses of tasseling corn rising high to
catch the sun. Far, far down on the opposite bank of the river was the hint of
a brown roof, and the tip of a chimney that sent a slender wisp of smoke into
the clear air. Beyond this, and farther back from the water, the trees
apparently hid a cluster of other chimneys, for thin spirals of smoke ascended