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[Illustration: "I must return to the house! There's something in the
garret I must have."--page 34.]




  ALICE WILDE:
  THE
  RAFTSMAN'S DAUGHTER.

  A
  FOREST ROMANCE.

  BY MRS. METTA V. VICTOR.

  NEW YORK:
  IRWIN P. BEADLE AND COMPANY,
  141 WILLIAM ST., CORNER OF FULTON.




  Entered according to Act of Congress, in the Year 1860, by
  IRWIN P. BEADLE & CO.,
  in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the
  Southern District of New York.




ALICE WILDE.




CONTENTS


  CHAPTER I. THE CABIN HOME.
  CHAPTER II. PALLAS AND SATURN.
  CHAPTER III. REJECTED ADDRESSES.
  CHAPTER IV. BEN PERKINS.
  CHAPTER V. AN APPALLING VISITOR.
  CHAPTER VI. THE COLD HOUSE-WARMING.
  CHAPTER VII. SUSPENSE.
  CHAPTER VIII. AWAY FROM HOME.
  CHAPTER IX. A ROLAND FOR AN OLIVER.
  CHAPTER X. RECONCILIATION.
  CHAPTER XI. A MEETING IN THE WOODS.
  CHAPTER XII. FAMILY AFFAIRS.
  CHAPTER XIII. THE TORNADO.
  CHAPTER XIV. GATHERING TOGETHER.
  CHAPTER XV. BEN AND ALICE.




CHAPTER I.

THE CABIN HOME.


"That ar' log bobs 'round like the old sea-sarpint," muttered Ben
Perkins to himself, leaning forward with his pole-hook and trying to
fish it, without getting himself too deep in the water. "Blast the
thing! I can't tackle it no how;" and he waded in deeper, climbed on
to a floating log, and endeavored again to catch the one which so
provokingly evaded him.

Ben was a "hand" employed in David Wilde's saw-mill, a few rods farther
up the creek, a young fellow not without claims to admiration as a
fine specimen of his kind and calling. His old felt-hat shadowed hair
as black as an Indian's, and made the swarthy hue of his face still
darker; his cheeks and lips were red, and his eyes blacker than his
hair. The striped wammus bound at the waist by a leather belt, and the
linen trowsers rolled up to the knees, were picturesque in their way
and not unbecoming the lithe, powerful figure.

Ben had bobbed for saw-logs a great many times in his life,