A RIVER VIEW. 205 



dead comes to life before one's very eyes. The rigid, 

 pallid river is resurrected in a twinkling. You look 

 out of your window one moment and there is that 

 great, white, motionless expanse ; you look again, 

 and there in its place is the tender, dimpling, spark- 

 ling water. But if your eyes are sharp, you may have 

 noticed the signs all the forenoon ; the time was ripe, 

 the river stirred a little in its icy shroud, put forth a 

 little streak or filament of blue water near shore, made 

 breathing-holes. Then, after a while, the ice was rent 

 in places, and the edges crushed together or shoved 

 one slightly upon the other ; there was apparently 

 something growing more and more alive and restless 

 underneath. Then suddenly the whole mass of the 

 ice from shore to shore begins to move down-stream, 

 very gently, almost imperceptibly at first, then with 

 a steady, deliberate pace that soon lays bare a large 

 expanse of bright, dancing water. The island above 

 keeps back the northern ice, and the ebb tide makes 

 a clean sweep from that point south for a few miles, 

 until the return of the flood, when the ice comes back. 

 After the ice is once in motion, a few hours suffice 

 to break it up pretty thoroughly. Then what a wild, 

 chaotic scene the river presents : in one part of the 

 day the great masses hurrying down stream, crowd- 

 ing and jostling each other, and struggling for the 

 right of way ; in the other, all running up stream 

 again, as if sure of escape in that direction. Thus 

 they race up and down, the sport of the ebb and 

 flow ; but the ebb wins each time by some distance. 



