Year: 1871

ley food as plain as though it was but
yesterday, stranger|


Did you live in the same place that
you do now?


MY cabin stood out yonder, near
the bank of the river. You can see
the spot from the doorway here
There, where that large elm stands.


Il should have thought that the wa
ter would have swept it away, standing
as it did on the low ground


/. 1T did sweep it away, stranger, and
my wife and children with it. If you
have time to hear it 1 don't mind tell
ing you the story


Plenty of time, and nothing would
suit me better. | am always anxious
to hear anything of that night which
has invested the Notch of the noun
tains with such mournful interest


The foregoing conversation took
place one day last summer between
myself and an old settler among the
mountains, at whose cottage ] had
stopped for glass of milk, and to rest
awhile from my walk. From one thing
concerning the mountains to another
we passed, and I found that there were
many incidents which he remembered
of much interest to the tourist, that
had not found their way into any OF
the guides or histories of the noun
tains which have been put forth. AT
last we came to speak of the great
freshet known in all the hill coun-
try as the Wiley food, and which
possesses a mournful interest for all the
dwellers in that region, and then en-
sued the conversation which l have
recorded as a preface to the story
which I have reproduced for the en-.
tertainment of my readers:


1t was in 1896, and l was q young
man then, and had just set up in the
world for myself. L had been married
two years, and my wife had a baby
boy of some six months. For the first
year I had lived with my father over
the mountains yonder, and then ]
bought this piece of intervalc, and
built cabin on it, and commenced
life for myself. We had no neighbors
very near then, the nearest being some
three miles down the river, while across
the mountains to fathers it was mile
further Still they seemed nearest to
us, for we saw them much oftener than
any one else-there never being but q
few days at time but some of us
passed back and forth.


I worked hard the year I built my
cabin, and by the opening of the next
season | had quite clearing made
about it, and and Mary, as we sat
in the doorway at early evening, and
gazed about over our possessions, used
to think that we were on the high road
to prosperity, and looked forward tc
the time when we should have one OF
the best farms lying about us, that
there was in all the mountainous re.
gion. OF one thing we were sure,
and that was, that the soil could not
be beat, and labor was only wanted to
make it bring forth abundantly.
The first part of that summer, our
crops looked finely, and gave promise
of an abundant harvest; but as the
season went on, drought set in, which
babe fair to scorch everything green
and tender from the face of the earth.
Every day the sun came up, and went
its fiery round without cloud to keep
its fierce rays from the earth, and
when at last August came in, even
the little due that had fallen at night
was withheld, and the crops, deprived
of this, no longer strove to live, but
turned yellow, sank upon the earth
and withered away. A large part that
1 had planted went in this manner, and
our clearing presented little the ap,
pearance in did in the spring-time.-
Still, if rain would come soon, there
would be enough saved to carry us
through the winter, and that was
more than many would have.


As the month went on, there came
s;o,ps of ro,n hut all of them failod