Movement beguiled a woman whose own
life had been stagnant for five-and-twenty years. Deep down in her
heart was the unformulated but inevitable conviction that the logs
were moving and that she was standing still. Tom loomed large in the
immediate foreground. He, too, moved so swiftly that his huge form
lacked definition. She saw him snatch a pole from one of the men and
stab viciously at a log which refused to budge; and every time that
his arm rose and fell a little shudder trickled down her spinal
column. The log seemed to receive the blows apathetically. A bad jam
was imminent. She could hear Tom swearing, and the other logs floating
on and on seemed to hear him also, and tremble. His bull's voice rose
loud above the roar of the falls. Mamie looked down. At her feet
crouched Dennis, the dog, and he also was trembling at those raucous
sounds, and Mamie could feel his thin ribs pressing against her own
thin legs.
At that moment light came to her obscure mind. She was like the log.
She refused to budge, funked the plunge, submitting to unending blows,
and words which were almost worse than blows.
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