Hardly had the Harbys begun even to talk about Penn’s land, when a terrible calamity befell them, which drove them out of their nest-like home, even as the mother-eagle pushes out her fledgelings, while the wonderful opportunity offered them, in Penn’s Groves, lured them to even greater ease and comforts. Across the Atlantic, there would be less of toil, than in their mountain home, with its long months of winter and its short weeks of summer.
The story would take too much time to tell, if we tried to note every detail. For a week previous, the snow had fallen continuously. It darkened the air, and covered the earth with many feet of solid whiteness. One old man was full of forebodings of calamity. On the edge of a cliff, far up on the mountain side, mighty masses of snow piled up, stood like a lofty tower, in terrible menace, likely soon to fall. All were hoping for the Föhn, or south wind, to blow and “eat up” the snow.
Unsuspecting a storm, a hunter had, some days before, gone among the heights, taking his [[13]]provisions and blanket, hoping to stalk an ibex, or at least a chamois. Caught in the sudden, blinding, whirling snow, and unable to find the path homeward, he built a rude shelter at the edge of the forest. This was opposite an overhanging rock, under this snow tower, which was steadily rising in height. Having enough rations in his wallet to last him four days, he waited till sunshine should come, hoping to see a troop of chamois, making their way down over the narrow ledge of rock, in search of moss for food. Fortunately for him, but calamitously for the village, his rifle shot brought down a fat buck.
Yet immediately upon that shock of the air, following the gunfire and report, fell tons upon tons of snow and ice. The mass, rolling down with lightning speed, increased in size at every yard. It fell on the village, overwhelming houses, barns, stables and gardens. Where yesterday were happy homes were now many human victims. Today, the mouldering stones in the church yard witness to the awful catastrophe. Pathetic is a similar record, made ten years later, in another village. “Dear God! What sorrow! Eighty-eight in a single tomb.”
Happily the Harby home, being on the edge of the avalanche’s track, though flattened out, like a sheet of mussed-up paper, had no human dead within its walls; though in the barn every [[14]]living animal was smothered by the weight of white.
Digging out a few necessary things, including the trusty rifle, unharmed, they packed them up, because they would be very necessary in the new home, or because they were linked with affectionate memories. They were happy in finding the stocking full of coin, which had been hidden behind a loose stone in the fireplace. Then the family made its way to Basle, on the Rhine. There they took boat, down the river to Rotterdam; where, with hundreds of other Swiss folks, they were sheltered, helped and kindly treated by the Dutch ministers and people.
Getting on board the ship “Arms of Rotterdam,” under the tricolor flag, red, white and blue of the Republic, they crossed the Atlantic and in Penn’s “Holy Experiment,” where thousands of Swiss folk had arrived before them, they reached safely the city of Brotherly Love. It was then little larger than a village. When the people from Wales, England, Holland and Germany first came and were building their houses, they had lived in caves, on the banks of the Delaware river, where now is Front Street; but when Harbys arrived there were hundreds of completed houses, some in brick, or stone, but mostly in wood. Yet even from the beginning, the land was properly surveyed, and laid out in squares, [[15]]and, with four large parks, and planted with trees, while some of the streets were paved. In truth, for order, and beauty, and liberal ideas, this was the queen city of America. [[16]]