Meantime, while all this was going on Pleasant Halfacre sat to one side, looking the very picture of dejection. A council was held and it was decided that if they sent Plez to jail, the county would have to support his family, and as taxes were already high, it was decided to deport him, his family and chattels.
Nearby, a house boat was found, which the owner offered to sell for twenty dollars. It was purchased and Halfacre, his family and effects were placed aboard and warned never to return, whereupon the boat was shoved out into the stream.
It was a sad blow and one the least expected. “To leave the cabin and go away where he should never again see the water lilies, out into the world where he just didn’t know nobody.” This was the burden of his lamentations as he sat upon the bow of the boat and wept.
Some of the women cried softly when they saw such evidence of his grief and love of home, humble and poverty stricken as it was, and they rode home in silence, wishing to forget the scene of the grief stricken man, who had said the birds would never sing so sweetly to him again.
When the word went around a day or two later, that Plez and his family were again living in the cabin, there was a general sigh of relief, and when the preacher spoke of forgiving “Those who trespass against us,” there were some heartfelt Amens that went up from the holy corner of the “Epworth Church.”
Winter had come and the Halfacres were discussed by the good dames who gathered at each others homes at quilting parties, and many were the articles of outgrown clothing that were sent to the destitute cabin.
There was a January thaw and the ice in the river was breaking up, when one morning in the grey dawn a barge came drifting down the stream amid the cakes of ice that were piling high upon the head of the island. A man was standing upon the deck, frantically calling for help, for it was certain the barge would be crushed in the great pack of ice when it struck the head of the island.
A crowd had followed along the shore, but none seemed to know what to do or to have the courage to venture to the man’s rescue.
Suddenly Plez Halfacre was seen to launch a skiff from among a clump of willows and standing on the bow, fought his way through the ice floes with an oar, rescued the man from his perilous position and landed safely below the head of the island.
The barge was lost and Plez became the hero of the hour.