A RIVER VIEW 185 



The river never seems so much a thing of life 

 as in the spring when it first slips off its icy fet- 

 ters. The 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, sparkling water. But if your eyes are 

 sharp, you may have noticed the signs all the fore- 

 noon; 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 under- 

 neath. Then suddenly the whole mass of the ice 

 from shore to shore begins to move downstream, — 

 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 suf- 

 fice 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 downstream, 

 crowding and jostling each other, and struggling for 

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



