The Riverman | Page 3

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ETEXTS*Ver.04.29.93*END*

I was pleased to find S.E. White's "The Riverman" as a Project
Gutenberg Etext as I had been looking for it elsewhere, but the text had
somehow been scrambled, with bits and pieces in the wrong order. So
I'm sending you my corrected version.
I believe I have joined all the pieces correctly, but I could do nothing
about the one or more missing lines shortly after the mention of
"Koosy-oonek" in chapter IV. I have marked the hiatus with five
asterisks (*****). I hope that someone will fill in the missing line(s).
Yours sincerely, Thorild Vrang Bennett, Aarhus, Denmark. Email:
[email protected].
jt Nov 03 - A reader reports from another edition that there is no
missing word, and that the sentence does read ". . . brings rain on the
just when they want to go fishing."

The Riverman
by Stewart Edward White

I
The time was the year 1872, and the place a bend in the river above a
long pond terminating in a dam. Beyond this dam, and on a flat lower
than it, stood a two-story mill structure. Save for a small, stump-dotted
clearing, and the road that led from it, all else was forest. Here in the
bottom-lands, following the course of the stream, the hardwoods grew
dense, their uppermost branches just beginning to spray out in the first
green of spring. Farther back, where the higher lands arose from the
swamp, could be discerned the graceful frond of white pines and
hemlock, and the sturdy tops of Norways and spruce.

A strong wind blew up the length of the pond. It ruffled the surface of
the water, swooping down in fan-shaped, scurrying cat's- paws, turning
the dark-blue surface as one turns the nap of velvet. At the upper end of
the pond it even succeeded in raising quite respectable wavelets, which
LAP LAP LAPPED eagerly against a barrier of floating logs that filled
completely the mouth of the inlet river. And behind this barrier were
other logs, and yet others, as far as the eye could see, so that the entire
surface of the stream was carpeted by the brown timbers. A man could
have walked down the middle of that river as down a highway.
On the bank, and in a small woods-opening, burned two fires, their
smoke ducking and twisting under the buffeting of the wind. The first
of these fires occupied a shallow trench dug for its accommodation, and
was overarched by a rustic framework from which hung several pails,
kettles, and pots. An injured-looking, chubby man in a battered brown
derby hat moved here and there. He divided his time between the
utensils and an indifferent youth--his "cookee." The other, and larger,
fire centred a rectangle composed of tall racks, built of saplings and
intended for the drying of clothes. Two large tents gleamed white
among the trees.
About the drying-fire