It is not difficult to find a single fool in any community, however small; but a family of fools is fortunately somewhat rarer. Every county, however, can boast of one fool-family, and York County is always in the fashion, with fools as with everything else. The unique, much-quoted, and undesirable Boomshers could not be claimed as indigenous to the Saco valley, for this branch was an offshoot of a still larger tribe inhabiting a distant township. Its beginnings were shrouded in mystery. There was a French-Canadian ancestor somewhere, and a Gypsy or Indian grandmother. They had always intermarried from time immemorial. When one of the selectmen of their native place had been asked why the Boomshers always married cousins, and why the habit was not discouraged, he replied that he really did nt know; he sposed they felt it would be kind of odd to go right out and marry a stranger.
Lest Boomsher seem an unusual surname, it must be explained that the actual name was French and could not be coped with by Edgewood or Pleasant River, being something as impossible to spell as to pronounce. As the family had lived for the last few years somewhere near the Killick Cranberry Meadows, they were calledand completely described in the callingthe Crambry fool-family. A talented and much traveled gentleman who once stayed over night at the Edgewood tavern, proclaimed it his opinion that Boomsher had been gradually corrupted from Beaumarchais. When he wrote the word on his visiting card and showed it to Mr. Wiley, Old Kennebec had replied, that in the judgment of a man who had lived in large places and seen a turrible lot o life, such a name could never have been given either to a Christian or a heathen family, that the way in which the letters was thrown together into it, and the way in which they was sounded when read out loud, was entirely agin reason. It was true, he said, that Beaumarchais, bein such a fool-name, might a ben invented a-purpose for a fool-family, but he would nt hold even with callin em Boomsher; Crambry was well enough for em an a sight easier to speak.
Stephen knew a good deal about the Crambrys, for he passed their so-called habitation in going to one of his wood-lots. It was only a month before that he had found them all sitting outside their broken-down fence, surrounded by decrepit chairs, sofas, tables, bedsteads, bits of carpet, and stoves.
Whats the matter? he called out from his wagon.
There aint nothin the matter, said Alcestis Crambry. Fathers dead, an were dividin up the furnerchure.
Alcestis was the pride of the Crambrys, and the list of his attainments used often to be on his proud fathers lips. It was he who was the largest, for his size, in the family; he who could tell his brothers Paul and Arcadus by their looks; he who knew a sour apple from a sweet one the minute he bit it; he who, at the early age of ten, was bright enough to point to the cupboard and say, Puddin, dad!
Alcestis had enjoyed, in consequence of his unusual intellectual powers, some educational privileges, and the Killick school-mistress well remembered his first day at the village seat of learning. Reports of what took place in this classic temple from day to day may have been wafted to the dull ears of the boy, who was not thought ready for school until he had attained the ripe age of twelve. It may even have been that specific rumors of the signs, symbols, and hieroglyphics used in educational institutions had reached him in the obscurity of his cranberry meadows. At all events, when confronted by the alphabet chart, whose huge black capitals were intended to capture the wandering eyes of the infant class, Alcestis exhibited unusual, almost unnatural, excitement. That is A, my boy, said the teacher genially, as she pointed to the first character on the chart. Good God, is that A! cried Alcestis, sitting down heavily on the nearest bench. And neither teacher nor scholars could discover whether he was agreeably surprised or disappointed in the letter,whether he had expected, if he ever encountered it, to find it writhing in coils on the floor of a cage, or whether it simply bore no resemblance to the ideal already established in his mind.
Mrs. Wiley had once tried to make something of Mercy, the oldest daughter of the family, but at the end of six weeks she announced that a girl who could nt tell whether the clock was going forrards or backwards, and who rubbed a pocket-handkerchief as long as she did a sheet, would be no help in her household.
The Crambrys had daily walked the five or six miles from their home to the Edgewood bridge during the progress of the drive, not only for the social and intellectual advantages to be gained from the company present, but for the more solid compensation of a good meal. They all adored Rose, partly because she gave them food, and partly because she was sparkling and pretty and wore pink dresses that caught their dull eyes.
The afternoon proved a lively one. In the first place, one of the younger men slipped into the water between two logs, part of a lot chained together waiting to be let out of the boom. The weight of the mass higher up and the force of the current wedged him in rather tightly, and when he had been pried out he declared that he felt like an apple after it had been squeezed in the cider-mill, so he drove home, and Rufus Waterman took his place.
Two hours hard work followed this incident, and at the end of that time the bung that reached from the shore to Watermans Ledge (the rock where Pretty Quick met his fate) was broken up, and the logs that composed it were started down-river. There remained now only the great side jam at Gray Rock. This had been allowed to grow, gathering logs as they drifted past, thus making higher water and a stronger current on the other side of the rock, and allowing an easier passage for the logs at that point.
All was excitement now, for, this particular piece of work accomplished, the boom above the falls would be turned out, and the river would once more be clear and clean at the Edgewood bridge.
Small boys, perching on the rocks with their heels hanging, hands and mouths full of red Astrakhan apples, cheered their favorites to the echo, while the drivers shouted to one another and watched the signs and signals of the boss, who could communicate with them only in that way, so great was the roar of the water.
The jam refused to yield to ordinary measures. It was a difficult problem, for the rocky river-bed held many a snare and pitfall. There was a certain ledge under the water, so artfully placed that every log striking under its projecting edges would wedge itself firmly there, attracting others by its evil example.
That galoot-boss ought to hev shoved his crew down to that jam this mornin, grumbled Old Kennebec to Alcestis Crambry, who was always his most loyal and attentive listener. But he would nt take no advice, not if Pharaoh nor Boaz nor Herod nor Nicodemus come right out o the Bible an give it to him. The logs air contrary today. Sometimes theyll go along as easy as an old shoe, an other times theyll do nothin but bung, bung, bung! Theres a log nestlin down in the middle o that jam that Ive ben watchin for a week. Its a curous one, to begin with; an then it has a mark on it that you can reconize it by. Did ye ever hear tell o George the Third, King of England, Alcestis, or aint he known over to the crambry medders? Well, once upon a time men used to go through the forests over here an slash a mark on the trunks o the biggest trees. That was the royal sign, as you might say, an meant that the tree was to be taken over to England to make masts an yard-arms for the Kings ships. What made me think of it now is that the Kings mark was an arrer, an its an arrer thats on that there log Im showin ye. Well, sir, I seen it fust at Millikens Mills a Monday. It was in trouble then, an its ben in trouble ever sence. Thats allers the way; therell be one pesky, crooked, contrary, consarned log that cant go anywheres without gittin into difficulties. You can yank it out an set it afloat, an before you hardly git your doggin iron off of it, itll be snarled up agin in some new place. From the time its chopped down to the day it gets to Saco, it costs the Compny bout ten times its pesky valler as lumber. Now theyve sent over to Bensons for a team of horses, an I bate ye they cant git em. I wish i was the boss on this river, Alcestis.