“I would not be baffled. I proposed a raft. Getting rails from the fence, I soon had tacked boards across—enough of them to carry my weight. Then, with a long pole, I began my voyage. Alas! it came to a ludicrous end. “A rail fence ran across this ravine in the field, just above the street. One end of the fence had loosened, and the water had floated it round enough to break its connection with its hither side. A large but young dog belonging to a friend had walked along the fence, hoping to cross dry-footed, till he came to the abrupt termination, and, his courage failing him, he had crouched down and lay trembling and whining, afraid to go back or to venture the water. I poled my raft up to the rescue; and, getting alongside, coaxed him to jump aboard, but his courage was all gone. He looked up wistfully, but stirred not. ‘Well, you coward, you _shall_ come aboard.’ Seizing him by the skin of the neck, I hauled him on to the raft, which instantly began to sink. It was buoyant enough for a man, but not for a man and a lubberly dog. There was nothing for it—as the stupid thing would not stir, I had to; and with a spring I reached the fence just abdicated by the dog, while he, the raft now coming to the surface again, went sailing down the pond and was safely landed below, while I was left in the crotch of the fence. One such experiment ought to serve for a life-time, but alas! “There is no end of things gone by. They rise at every point; and one walks encompassed with memories which accompany him through the living streets like invisible spirits.” CHAPTER XI. Invitation to come East—Call to Plymouth Church—Friendly Misgivings—Plainly Outlining his Views—Early Success—Plymouth Burned—Preaching in the Tabernacle. Mr. Beecher had confidently expected to have remained permanently in the West, and to have grown up with the new but rising country; but it was destined to be otherwise. His fame had spread Eastward, and in the early winter of 1846 a tentative effort was made to call him thither. Mr. W. T. Cutler, returning from a visit at the West, wrote in December, 1846, to Mr. Beecher that Dr. Storrs had been called to the Church of the Pilgrims; that one of Dr. Cheever’s principal men, J. Hunt, had “observed to me that Dr. Cheever named _you_ as the man for the Pilgrims, and he thinks that there will be new churches formed on the Congregational plan here and in Brooklyn, and that you are the man to build up _one_ of them.” While in Cincinnati Mr. Cutler called on Dr. Lyman Beecher relative to his son’s going East, but “_he_ set his face like flint against it.” He then had a long and urgent talk with the son again, in answer to which he received the following letter: “INDIANAPOLIS, December 15, 1846.