Nid and Nod by Ralph Henry Barbour — Read

Mae Ferrand was not on hand the next afternoon when the twins and Bob Starling reached the Widow Deane's. Mae, Polly informed them, had gone to Poughkeepsie to spend Sunday with her grandmother. They decided to go down to the river for their walk this afternoon, and were soon descending Walnut Street. At the station they crossed the tracks, passed the freight-shed, and went southward beside the river, blue and sparkling in the spring sunlight. Then they had to return again to the tracks and cross a bridge that spanned a narrow inlet. The inlet connected the river with a shallow stretch of marsh and water known as the Basin which lay between the tracks and the big rock-quarry. The quarry was slowly but very surely removing the hill called Little Crow, and the face of the quarry was fully eighty feet in height from the boulder-strewn base to the tree-topped summit. It was here that stone was being obtained for the work on which Mr. Starling's company was engaged. Spur-tracks ran from the railroad to the base of the high cliff, about two hundred yards distant, and from the railroad again to the stone-walled dock wherein the quarry company loaded to lighters for water transportation. The Basin was a favorite place for skating in winter, and Ned reminded the others of several episodes of three months back.

"Remember the time Elk Thurston tried to get ashore over there by the rushes? " asked Ned. "Every time he put his foot down the ice broke and let him through."