“The destructive freshet of 1826,” continued the doctor, “swept everything before it, flooding the intervale, and threatening the old house down there with instant demolition. During that terrible night, when the Willey family perished, Mrs. Crawford was alone with her young children in the house. The water rose with such rapidity that she was driven to the upper story for safety. While here, the thud of floating trees, driven by the current against the house, awakened new terrors. At every concussion the house trembled. Wooden walls could not long stand that terrible pounding. The heroic woman, alive to the danger, seized a stout pole, and, going to the nearest window, kept the side of the house exposed to the flood free from the mass of wreck-stuff collected against it. She held her post thus throughout the night, until the danger had passed. When the flood subsided, Crawford found several fine trout alive in his cellar.”
“When do the great freshets usually occur?” I asked.
“In the autumn,” replied our host. “It is not the melting snows, but the sudden rainfalls that we fear.”
“Yes,” resumed he, reflectively, “the Crawfords were a family of athletes. With them the race of guides became extinct. Soon after settling here, Abel went with his wife to Bartlett on some occasion, leaving their two boys in the care of a hired man. When they had gone, this man took what he could find of value and decamped. When Abel returned, which he did on the following day, he immediately set out in pursuit of the thief, overtook him thirty miles from here, in the Franconia forests, flogged him within an inch of his life, and let him go.”
“Sixty miles on foot, and alone, to recover a few stolen goods, and punish a thief!” cried the astonished colonel; “that beats Daniel Boone.”
“Yes; and what is more, the boys were brought up to face hunger, cold, fatigue, with Indian stoicism, and even to encounter bears, lynxes, and wolves with no other weapons than those provided by nature. There, now, was Ethan, for example,” said the doctor, smiling at the recollection. “One day he took it into his head to have a tame bear for the diversion of his guests. Well, he caught a young one, half grown, and remarkably vicious, in a trap. But how to get him home! At length Ethan tied his fore and hind paws together so he couldn’t scratch, and put a muzzle of withes over his nose so he couldn’t bite. Then, shouldering his prize as he would a bag of meal, the guide started for home, in great glee at the success of his clever expedient. He had not gone far, however, before Bruin managed to get one paw wholly and his muzzle partly free, and began to scratch and struggle and snap at his captor savagely. Ethan wanted to get the bear home terribly; but, after having his clothing nearly torn off his back, he grew angry, and threw the beast upon the ground with such force as to kill him instantly.”
“Report,” said I, “credits you with naming most of the mountains which overlook the intervale.”
“Yes,” replied the doctor, “Resolution, over there”—indicating the mountain allied to Crawford, and to the ridge which forms one of the buttresses of Mount Washington—“I named in recognition of the perseverance of Mr. Davis, who became discouraged while making a path to Mount Washington in 1845.”
“Is the route practicable?” I asked.
“Practicable, yes; but nearly obliterated, and seldom ascended. Have you seen Frankenstein?” demanded the doctor, in his turn.