He stuck to his hoeing until he was nearly
exhausted, and Antoine Lamarche's ground showed at least enough
improvement to offset all the cheating he had done that week, and then
made his way among bushes to the verge of the bank. The strong current
always bearing down from the northwest against the peninsula had
increased its velocity to a dizzy sweep. It bit out pieces of the shore
as large as Father Baby's shop, and far and near these were seen falling
in with splashes like the spouting of whales.
"At this rate," said Father Baby aloud, "I shall have no part left in
the common fields by next year."
The river's tremendous rolling roar was also swollen to unusual
magnitude. He looked afar over a tawny surface at undermined stumps and
trees racing past one another. The June rise, which the melting of snows
in those vague regions around its head-waters was called, had been
considerable, but nothing to terrify the Kaskaskians. One week's rain
and the drainage of the bottom lands could scarcely have raised the
river to such a height.
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