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Jule Fisher's Rescue.
It had been an unusually severe winter, even for Northern Aroostook. Snow-fall had succeeded snow-fall, with no interval that could really be called "thaw," till the "loggers" had finished their work; and as they come plodding home on snow shoes, they all agreed that the snow lay from ten to twelve feet deep on a level in the woods.
No wonder, then, that the warm March sun came to shine upon it day after day, and the copious spring showers fell, there should have been a very unusual "flood," or freshet. Every one predicted that when the ice should break in the river, there would be a grand spectacle, and danger, too, as well; and all waited with some anxiety for the "break" to come.
One morning, we at the village were awakened by a deep, roaring, booming, crashing noise, and sprang from our beds, crying:
"The ice has broken up! The ice is running out!"
In hardly more time than it takes to tell it, we were dressed and at the back windows, which looked down upon the river!
It was indeed a grand sight!
Huge cakes of ice of every shape and size were driving, tumbling, crashing past, as if in a mad race with each other. The river, filled to overflowing, seemed in angry haste to hurl its icy burden down the falls below.
But after a few days the river ran clear, save for the occasional breaking of some "jam" above. Along the margin of the broad stream, however, there were here and there slight indentures, or notches, in the banks, where the ice had escaped the mad rush of waters and still clung in considerable patches.
It was upon one of these still undisturbed patches that "Jule" Fisher, a rough boy of fourteen, with several of his equally rough comrades, was playing on the lovely morning upon which my story opens.
These lads were not the sons of the steady, intelligent, church-going inhabitants of this quiet Northern hamlet, but were from the families of "lumbermen," "river-drivers" and "shingle-shavers." For some time they had been having boisterous sport, venturing out upon the extreme edges of the ice and with long poles pushing about the stray cakes which occasionally came within their reach.
At length they grew tired of this, and began to jump upon ticklish points of ice; and as these began to crack and show signs of breaking away, the boys would run, with wild whoops, back to shore, the very danger seeming to add to their enjoyment. Then, with poles and "prys," they would work upon the cracking mass until it floated clear and went whirling down the rapid current.
"Ahoy, boys!" called Jule, who was seemingly their leader. "Up yender's a big cake that only wants a shove! Come on! Let's set 'er a-going!"
No sooner said than done. Away went the noisy fellows to the projecting point of ice. A few smart jumps sent it creaking and groaning, as though still unwilling to quit its snug winter bed. One more jump, and the boys all ran with a shout beyond the place where the ice was cracking off—all save Jule.
It had not broken clear, and he was determined to set it going, when he would spring on the firm ice beyond, as he had done once or twice before.
But this time he was over-bold and not sufficiently watchful. A large cake of ice had come floating down the river unnoticed either by him or his friends, and striking the edge of the nearly loosened mass, shoved it out into the swift, black water.
Poor Jule! He ran quickly to the freshly-broken edge—but, alas! too late for the intended spring. The swiftly-rushing current had borne him many yards from the shore and from his companions.
There he stood—for an instant in dumb amaze—balancing himself upon his rocking raft with the pole he had been using. To attempt to swim ashore would have been useless. He was a clumsy swimmer at best; and the cold, rushing waters and floating ice cakes made swimming almost impossible.
He could not get off. To stay seemed sure death. Dumb with fright, for a moment he stood in speechless terror. Then there rang across the wild, black river and through the quiet streets of the village, such a yell of abject fear as only a lusty lad of that age can give. It was a cry that chilled the heart of every one who heard it.
A "four-days' meeting" was in session. The village church-goers were just issuing from their houses in answer to the church bell, when that pitiful cry and the shouts of "Help! Help! A boy in the stream!" reached them, and drew them all quickly to the river bank.
In a few minutes the shore was lined with excited men and women. Yet all stood helplessly staring, while poor Jule on his ice-raft was floating steadily down toward the falls.
Never shall I forget how he looked as he stood there in the middle of his floating white throne! There was something almost heroic in his calm helplessness. For after the first wild cry, he had not once opened his lips.
Downward he floated, drawn swiftly and surely on by the deep, mighty rush of waters setting into the throat of the cataract. The heavy roar from far below sounded like the luckless lad's knell. He stood but a single chance—and that was hardly a chance—of his ice-raft lodging against a tilted-up "jam" of cakes and logs which had piled against a jagged ledge that rose in mid-stream, just above the brink of the precipice.
This "jam" had hung there, wavering in the flood, for thirty-six hours. Every moment it seemed about to go off—yet still it clung, in tremor, as it seemed, at the fatal plunge which would dash it to pieces in the thundering maelstrom below.
Good fortune—Providence, perhaps—so guided Jule's ice-raft that it struck and lodged against the "jam," just as the horrified watchers on shore expected to lose sight of the lad forever in the falls. "If it will only hang there!" muttered scores, scarcely daring as yet to speak a loud word.
They could see the cake, with Jule on it, heaving up and down with the mighty rhythmic motion of the surging torrent; and all ran along down the banks, to come nearer. The boy stood in the very jaws of death. Beneath, the cataract roared and hurled up white gusts of spray.
Just at this moment, a short, thick-set man, with a round, good-natured face, joined the crowd. For a moment he stood looking out at the lad, then slapping another young man on the shoulder, said, hurriedly, "Isn't there an old bateau stowed away in your shed, Lanse?"
"Yes," was the reply.
"Quick, then!" exclaimed the first speaker. "There isn't a moment to lose."
"But, Mac," answered Lanse, as he hurried after him. "I'm afraid she's no good; she's old and she's been stowed away all winter. Ten to one the old thing leaks like a riddlin' sieve.
"But we mustn't lose a chance!" exclaimed Mac. "That jam will go out within half an hour, if it doesn't within ten minutes!"
By this time the two had reached the shed. They quickly drew the bateau from its wintering place, and taking the long, light boat upon their shoulders, ran rapidly through the village and down to the river.
Meantime, two or three other men had run to fetch "dog warps" and "towing-lines," a large number of which are always kept in these backwoods lumbering hamlets, for use on the rivers and lakes, when logs are rafted out in the spring.
Acting under Mac's prompt orders, a six-hundred foot warp was at once made fast to a ring in the stern of a bateau, and another line laid ready to bend to the first.
Jumping into the bateau, paddle in hand, and a boat-hook laid ready for instant use, the bold young fellow now ordered the men to shove off the skiff into the river and then pay out the line, as he should direct—thus lowering him, yard by yard, down toward the "jam" where Jule stood.
Rod by rod, they let him down toward the roaring abyss of furious waters, till the bateau—guided by the paddle, and held back now by the main strength of twenty men—touched the ice-cake.
But even as it touched, the cake began to slide off the jam; and Jule was thrown on his hands and knees.
Quick as thought, however, his courageous rescuer struck his boat-hook into the ice and held fast while Jule, stiff with fright, tumbled in at the bow of the bateau.
He was hardly in the boat when the whole mass of ice and logs went over the falls.
A shout arose, and when a few minutes later the bateau was drawn safely back up the stream, and Mac stepped ashore with a rather bashful smile on his round, fresh face, every one joined in long and prolonged cheers.
As for Jule, he had to be helped out of the boat and led home; for he was, as they said, "limp as a rag;" and it was noticed that after this perilous adventure he was a much more sober and thoughtful boy.
Pray do not imagine, reader, that I have been telling you a "made-up" story, for what I have related is true, the writer herself being an eye-witness to the incident while a teacher in a backwoods school-district on the banks of the Aroostook.