David Crockett: His Life and AdventuresAbbott, John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot)
History
David Crockett: His Life and Adventures
Abbott, John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot)
Crockett, Davy, 1786-1836
"I went but a short distance when I came to another slough, over which
there was a log, but it was floating on the water. I thought I could
walk it, so I mounted on it. But when I had got about the middle of the
deep water, somehow or somehow else, it turned over, and in I went up
to my head. I waded out of this deep water, and went ahead till I came
to the highland, where I stopped to pull of my wet clothes, and put on
the others which I held up with my gun above water when I fell in."
This exchanging of his dripping garments for dry clothes, standing in
the snow four inches deep, and exposed to the wintry blast, must have
been a pretty severe operation. Hardy as Crockett was, he was so
chilled and numbed by the excessive cold that his flesh had scarcely
any feeling. He tied his wet clothes together and hung them up on the
limb of a tree, to drip and dry He thought he would then set out on the
full run, and endeavor thus to warm himself by promoting the more rapid
circulation of his blood. But to his surprise he could scarcely move.
With his utmost exertions he could not take a step more than six inches
in length. He had still five miles to walk, through a rough, pathless
forest, encumbered with snow.
By great and painful effort he gradually recovered the use of his
limbs, and toiling along for two or three hours, late in the evening
was cheered by seeing the light of a bright fire shining through the
chinks between the logs of his brother's lonely cabin. He was received
with the utmost cordiality. Even his hardy pioneer brother listened
with astonishment to the narrative of the perils he had surmounted and
the sufferings he had endured. After the refreshment of a warm supper,
Crockett wrapped himself in a bearskin, and lying down upon the floor,
with his feet to the fire, slept the sweet, untroubled sleep of a babe.
In the morning he awoke as well as ever, feeling no bad consequences
from the hardships of the preceding day.
The next morning a freezing gale from the north wailed through the
snow-whitened forest, and the cold was almost unendurable. The earnest
persuasions of his brother and his wife induced him to remain with them
for the day. But, with his accustomed energy, instead of enjoying the
cosey comfort of the Fireside, he took his rifle, and went out into the
woods, wading the snow and breasting the gale. After the absence of an
hour or two, he returned tottering beneath the load of two deer, which
he had shot, and which he brought to the cabin on his shoulders. Thus
he made a very liberal contribution to the food of the family, so that
his visit was a source of profit to them, not of loss.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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