Nettie Blair

 

In those days, people used the river for all sorts of things.  A maze of mill races poured river-water over wheels turning gears that powered machines and families fished in the lagoons and under bridges and barges bearing cattle for market or timber or, even, steel girders, coursed up and down the stream.  And there were dams making rational the river where there had once been irregular rapids or outright falls and canals with locks detouring around the dams and, at intervals, huge beehive-shaped brick structures built to store blocks of river ice for the summer in cocoons of sawdust.  Canoes slipped through the shadows cast by trees on the river’s banks and young men rowed their sweethearts to shaggy islands in the stream and pleasure cruises lit by lanterns and crowded with people drinking and singing sentimental songs plodded downstream.  Waders waded and bathers bathed and, sometimes, a brave soul would be glimpsed in the center of the current puffing and blowing out water like a river god.  

Nettie Blair contrived another use of the river.  She was the joy of our town, and much admired, but certain circumstances, about which the less said the better, rendered her desolate and friendless.  At that time, she had been expelled from her father’s house and was living at a boarding house only a few steps from the river’s bank.  Many among us would have gladly helped her in exchange for some modicum of tenderness, but Nettie Blair was proud and recoiled from our advances.  It was obvious that we were not the solution that she desired to her problems.

One warm afternoon in August, Nettie left her humid room at the boarding house and made her way to the river.  People fishing downstream from the dam saw her venture onto the rim of the wall impounding the river.  She made her way daintily to the middle of the dam and, then, planned, it seemed, to slip into the deep water upstream.  She was wearing patent leather boots and a full hoop-skirt and held a parasol shaped like a flower over her head.  

But, something, went awry and, instead of dropping gracefully into the deep pool above the dam, she lost her footing in the spillover and slid on her haunches, most unceremoniously, down the steep concrete apron at the falls, dropping into the churn of white water below.  Clad as she was, her boots and dress pulled her under.  A couple times, she surfaced sputtering and spitting water, but, then, the young woman sunk into the brown river and did not rise again.  A fisherman in his boat rowed to the place where she had vanished, abandoning his watercraft to dive for her.  He dragged Nettie out of the flood and, swimming sideways, yanked her to shore.  At that time, she was not breathing and her life was despaired of, but, after some vigorous exertions by her rescuer, Nettie regained consciousness, groaning and vomiting water.  

For several days, Nettie was hospitalized.  Then, she returned to her dwelling in the boarding house, sitting on the porch in the warm shade, and regarding the river flowing nearby with a numbed, mask-like expression on her face.  She gave no excuses nor apologies and spoke to no one.  The other guests at the boarding house said that she scarcely touched her meals.

In late September, as the days were growing shorter and more cool, Nettie Blair made her way to the swimming beach with its little docks for the bathers now hauled out of the lagoon and stored among the big trees on the shore.  The food kiosks were closed for the season and there was only a single boy working at the concession that rented row-boats to guests.  Nettie Blair handed the boy some money and waited as he counted out her change.  Then, she went to the boat, bobbing next to the little white-washed docked, and stepping aboard, put the paddles into the oar-locks.  She rowed upriver in the twilight.  

An hour later, the overturned rowboat drifted back down stream.