A few days afterwards I went by rail to Contocook where I was met by Mr. Anderson, who took me out to his hospitable home a couple of miles from the town. This Anderson was a remarkable man. Having no education to speak of, he was a better judge of human nature and practical affairs of life than any other man I ever met. He was pleased with me, and said he wished I would sit down in the evening and tell him about Sweden, and explain to him what I had learned at school. Poor Anderson! He had one fault, rum got the better of him, and it was cheap in New England at that time, only sixteen cents a gallon. He bought a barrel of it at a time, and did not taste water as long as the rum lasted. The day after my arrival he asked me if I would like to go with him into the woods to help cut some logs. Of course I would, and we took our axes and started off. It was a very cold December day, and I had thin clothes and no mittens. Mr. Anderson went to cut down a tree, and I commenced to work at one which was already felled. This was the first time I swung an axe in earnest, and after a short while I felt that my hands were getting cold. But I made up my mind not to stop until the log was finished. By holding the axe handle very tight it stopped the circulation of the blood through my fingers, and when I finally stopped and dropped the axe I could not move my fingers, for eight of them were frozen stiff. Mr. Anderson now took off his cap, filled it with snow, put my hands into the snow, and thus we ran to the house as fast as our legs would carry us. The doctor tried his very best; but, nevertheless, in a few days the flesh and the nails began to peel off, and two doctors decided to amputate all the fingers on my right hand. Fortunately I did not give my consent, but told them that I would rather die of gangrene than live without hands, for my future depended exclusively on them. My friend Eustrom, having heard of my misfortune, soon came to visit me, and brought with him an old Irish woman who was something of a doctor, and cured my hands by means of a very simple plaster which she prepared herself. But I was forced into complete inactivity for more than three months, during which time I was entirely helpless, and had to be washed, dressed, and fed like an infant. But, as to me, the old proverb has always proved true: "When things are at the worst they'll mend." There were men and women in my accidental home who willingly tended to me in my trouble. May God bless them for it! In the latter part of March, Mr. Anderson, who had always treated me with the greatest kindness, quite unexpectedly told me that I was now able to work again and could try to get a place with some other family in the neighborhood, because he could not keep me any longer.