Wausau pilot. [volume] (Wausau, Wis.) 1896-1940, 1905-05-23
IN TIME OF GREAT SHOWS.
Tales of Storms that Covered Honses
to the Roofs.

Tales of Storms that Covered Honses
to the Roofs.
There is no reason, meteoroiogists
tell us, why the phrase, IAN old-fash-
Toned winter" should be used as it Sc
often is TO designate a severe season,
since the climate has not really
changed. Probably the many tales
handed down ABOUT historic storms,
great SHOWS and famous cold spells
Of the past have had much to do with
the prevalence of a contrary idea.
Two such old-time anecdotes belong,
one to the Great Snow Of 1717," the
other to great snow of a century
and half later The first, preserved
in the annals of old Newbury, relates
how, when the snow lay ten feet deep
on the level and the drifts were in
some places twenty feet daring suit
or by the name of Abraham Adams
resolved to call upon his sweetheart,
Abigail Pierce, who lived three miles
distant
1t was then a week after the mar
velous snowfall of four days in mid
February, which had so smothered the
earth in whiteness, and the snow had
become hard enough to bear. Mount
ing his snowshoes, Abraham left his
own home by a window in the second
story, traversed fields, roads and pas
lures by a short cut across buried
walls and bushes, and sometimes at
the height of the young treetops, and
finally reached the lady's dwelling,
where, all the doors being buried un-
der, he knocked for admittance on the
pane.
AS he had departed, so he arrived
by a chamber window. He was the
first person the family had seen for
eleven days, and it may well be i'm
agined that his visit was appreciated,
and that the fair Abigail exulted in
the prowess and devotion of such a
lover.
The other tale also concerns a court
ship-that of q certain Hiram and Sa-
rah, which had been for several years
in progress without result Hiram,
a man nearing middle age, was stsffi-
GENTLY ardent; but Sarah, a comely
widow of about the same number of
years, and the sole owner of q fine
and welLstocked farm, was contunted
as her own mistress, and loarh to
change her condition.
Whey the great storm came, her
farmhouse, like so many others, was
cut of; indeed, it was quite lost to
sight from the village, buried to the
caves on one side and to the second
story on the other. None of her hired
men slept on the place, and she and
her women, although comfortable
enough, were wholly unable to dig
themselves out, or, what was still
worse, to dig their way to the barn.
They made gallant attempt, but
without success.
The cattle and poultry were already
suffering, when Hiram was heard hal
looing without. Presently from the
upper windows he was seen furiously
plying his shovel; then he disappeared
within tunnel aimed toward the door,
and only the spurts of flying snow
tossed outward betrayed his where
abouts. At last they heard him again,
close at hand, laundering on the pan
els with the handle of his shovel.
When, with much difficulty, they got
the great door open, he stumbled in,
white from head to foot and painting
with exertion, and gasped out:
Sally, what want to know is this:
Be findings havings"
Sally rose to the occasion. Without
a moments hesitation she answered
firmly:
Findings be havings. Hiram. Now,
dig your way to the barn and feed
our critters"
He dug and he fed, and before the
spring came round his Sally and her
critters" were safe under the protec-
ton of man.