Page:The Granite Monthly Volume 2.djvu/329

 ITEMS AND INCIDENTS IN HOPKINTON.

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��A YARN.

A yarn is a distinctively qualified relation. While it assumes the appear - ancd of veracity on its inception, the boldness of its progressive or final inci- dents must startle the incredulity of the most obtuse. Without this charac- teristic audacity of relation, no con- catenated order of narrated particulars can legitimately claim to be a yarn. The implied characteristic of mental ingenuity being very prominent, few persons are capable of inventing a good yarn. The scarcity of the spe- cies makes a good narrator of yarns a person of local celebrity. Such a person lived years ago in this town, and, though he has gone, the memory of his yarns has not departed. We give one.

The tale includes assumed circum- stances attendant upon a flood of the Contoocook river. The banks of this stream being low, a sudden rise of water often floods the adjacent mead- ows and intervales, sometimes also submerging the lower floors of dwel- lings in the vicinity. A considerable portion of Contoocook village has been thus sometimes flowed. On the occa- sion of one of the heaviest freshets on the Contoocook, a farm-house on one of its banks was suddenly partially en- gulfed. The occupants — husband and wife — were in a situation both unhap- py and precarious. Their neighbors promptly determined to rescue them. Here the yarn begins.

The original narrator, who claimed to have been one of the rescuing party, stated that a boat was procured, into which a number of person^ entered and pulled for the imperiled home. Having reached the house, they rowed into the front door and made their way into a room where the unfortunate in- mates were found upon a bed, which supported them above the water. The boat being brought to the bedside, the relieved persons stepped gladly into it, and preparations were made to return to shore. Just then, however, one of the rescuing party suggested that a little cider would be an appropriate acknowledgement of a favor. The

��host was complacent. He imme- diately leaped from the boat, procured a light, went down cellar, drew some cider, returned and regaled the com- pany, and then the whole party stood out for dry land. The reader will re- member we have already made our comments at the beginning of this matter.

A DEED OF DARING.

Speaking of the floods of the Con- toocook, we are reminded of an event which took place about seventy years ago, and which gave abundant attesta- tion of the courage of a woman. The time was spring. The day was Sun- day. The woman was Mrs. John O. Emerson.

Spring thaws often suddenly break up the ice in rivers and send it in fragments on a hasty march south- ward. The day we have in mind was one of the warmer days of the early season. In the morning, a party of perhaps a dozen persons, Mrs. Emer- son among the rest, crossed the frozen river from the north side, to attend meeting at the old west meeting- house. As the day marched on to its meridian, the warmth increased, the snows melted, the waters swelled, the ice broke, and the surface of the river became strewn with the floating debris of the natural bridge of the morning.

Returning from church, the aforesaid party approached the river to find a most forbidding barrier to their direct progress homeward. They halted for reflection. The nearest bridge was three miles down the river. To reach home that way required at least six miles of travel. The party was on foot, yet the dominant opinion — the natural one — admitted no alternative. Mrs. Emerson, however, demurred in view of the popular decision. She could not think of wasting so much energy in a needless tramp. She would recross the river on the floating ice. Not to be deterred from her reso- lution, she sprang upon an icy float. Alert, she bounded to a second. A third was gained by a dexterious leap. In this manner she reached the oppo- site shore. Her friends stood still and

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