Agnes Louise Provost

“ Then came the swish and slap of water against their own steps, and bump! bump! as a heavy ice cube slammed its weight against the house.
“Jack, are you awake?”
Oh, yes, mother! Don’t worry; we ‘re all right. The house is strong, and it can’t hurt us unless it comes up to this floor.”
“Don't wake the children until it is absolutely necessary,” she warned him.
The bumping of ice cakes against their own house was not pleasant. Jack and his mother huddled close and watched and listened. Morning was coming, and a strange-looking street was being unfolded to their view. ”

“ Its natural channel once more free, the water was draining out of the sloping street almost as rapidly as it had come, leaving masses of ice stranded high and dry. Jack leaned out of the window and saw one huge cake balanced neatly on the projection above their own front door, while a score of others lay on the sidewalk. In fifteen minutes their end of the street was quite clear, save for the ice cakes and the mud streaks on houses and pavements. Around the next corner he saw a man come, running excitedly. Jack pulled off his coat and waved it. ”

“ I don’t know mach about bridges, but it seems as if there were a great many piers for this kind of a river.”
“You mean when the ice breaks up?”
“Yes,” said Jack, eagerly, all enthusiasm in telling the idea which had been simmering in his brain for several weeks. “It seems funny that the railroad company should want a fifteen-pier bridge, which will catch the ice and jam it, and force the water back over its own tracks. This end of the city is pretty low, and when the ice comes down it comes in an awful hurry, and wants lots of room to get through.” ”