CHAPTER X 



A FEBRUARY FRESHET 



ONE of the very interesting events in my out- 

 of-door year is the February freshet. Per- 

 haps you call it the February thaw. That 

 is all it could be called this year ; and, in fact, 

 a thaw is all that it ever is for me, nowadays, living, 

 as I do, high and dry here, on Mullein Hill, above 

 a sputtering little trout brook that could not have a 

 freshet if it tried. 



But Maurice River could have a freshet without 

 trying. Let the high south winds, the high tides, and 

 the warm spring rains come on together, let them 

 drive in hard for a day and a night, as I have 

 known them to do, and the deep, dark river goes 

 mad ! The tossing tide sweeps over the wharves, 

 swirls about the piles of the great bridge, leaps 

 foaming into the air, and up and down its long high 

 banks beats with all its wild might to break through 

 into the fertile meadows below. 



There are wider rivers, and other, more exciting 

 things, than spring freshets ; but there were not 

 when I was a boy. Why, Maurice River was so wide 

 that there was but a single boy in the town, as I 

 remember, who could stand at one end of the draw- 



