Lou’s View – June 26, 2014
The Incident of Lucy Still
by Lou Bernard
As I write this, I’m on the third floor of the library using a borrowed laptop. We’re having some carpeting done downstairs, and the first floor is closed off at the moment. We have computers for people to use, and we can take returns and renewals. Otherwise, I’ve been getting pretty good at saying “We apologize for the inconvenience.” (By the time you’re reading this, everything will be back to normal again. I work on these columns a few weeks ahead of time.)
So, I’m somewhat inconvenienced by the circumstances. I sympathize with Lucy Still, who appears in an item that was reprinted in the Record on February 3, 1881. The story seems to have originated out around Mercer County, and been cut-and-pasted into several other papers. (It took six hours to cut and paste back in the old newspapers. You don’t even want to know how long it took to forward mail. Life’s rough—Here I sit without access to my favorite pen.)
Mrs. Lucy Still was reported as being sixty years old at the time this happened in January 1881, which means she was probably born about 1821. Be impressed; I just did that math in my head—My calculator is on the first floor, too. Lucy decided to go and visit her son, who was sick. Probably because he lived in a swamp—He is said to have lived in Darney Swamp, about seven miles from Mrs. Still.
Mrs. Still, who was apparently a stubborn old firecracker, insisted she was going to walk the entire way there and back. She’d done it before, she said. (Again, I understand it—I had to go down two whole flights of back stairs to check my mail.) So she started out at about three in the afternoon, heading for her son’s place.
She didn’t make it, at least not that day.
She’d gone about three miles. And then she got hit with a snowstorm, and then stuck in mud. The article said,”Before she got half the distance a violent snow-storm set in, and in a short time the road was hidden from sight. Darkness, too, soon came, and the old lady straggled from the road and became fast in a deep mire. The more she struggled, the deeper she sank, until at last, weary from exertion, she gave up all attempt to extricate herself, and prayed for help.
She wound up stuck there overnight. You have to feel for people like Lucy Still and myself; I mean, someone just came to return books and I had to type in all the serial numbers by hand on this laptop. Oh, the humanity.
In the morning, with what the papers called “superhuman effort,” she got out and made her way to a small hemlock tree, which she climbed up for safety. She was said to have fended off the cold by waving her hands and feet around.
She was carrying a few crackers, which she ate, and some whiskey, which she had intended to give to her son. And that’s all she had to eat or drink, aside from swamp water, for a hundred and sixty-five hours. That’s over six days—I did that math in my head, too. And I don’t even have whiskey.
“While fast in the mire Mrs. Still saw several bears and scores of deer, and was attacked at one time by a panther,” the article said. “She gave terrible screams as the animal approached her, and he ran away.”
All in all, Lucy Still was lost in the swamp for an entire week. A group of hunters found her on the seventh day, rescued her, and took her to her son’s home. (With no whiskey.) Doctors were called in, and it is fortunate that they had an easier time getting to her son’s house than she did. (The internet connection up here just went out, too, and I had to reboot. Seriously, how am I supposed to work under these conditions?)
Lucy Still survived her ordeal, though the doctors said she would never again be the same. She made it through her week in the swamp, the same way I’m managing to get through my exile to the third floor. Actually, it hasn’t been all that bad….I’ve even been able to use the microwave to warm up my coffee. And the new carpet looks pretty good, too.
