t,
paused for one moment in silent commendation of his soul to God, and,
throwing himself into the waves, struck out for the shore. Abigail
Becker, breast-deep in the surf, awaited him. He was almost within her
reach, when the undertow swept him back. By a mighty exertion she
caught hold of him, bore him in her strong arms out of the water, and,
laying him down by her fire, warmed his chilled blood with copious
draughts of hot tea. The mate, who had watched the rescue, now
followed, and the captain, partially restored, insisted upon aiding him.
As the former neared the shore, the recoiling water baffled him.
Captain Hackett caught hold of him, but the undertow swept them both
away, locked in each other's arms. The brave woman plunged after them,
and, with the strength of a giantess, bore them, clinging to each other,
to the shore, and up to her fire. The five sailors followed in
succession, and were all rescued in the same way.

A few days after, Captain Hackett and his crew were taken off Long Point
by a passing vessel; and Abigail Becker resumed her simple daily duties
without dreaming that she had done anything extraordinary enough to win
for her the world's notice. In her struggle every day for food and
warmth for her children, she had no leisure for the indulgence of self-
congratulation. Like the woman of Scripture, she had only "done what
she could," in the terrible exigency that had broken the dreary monotony
of her life.

It so chanced, however, that a gentleman from Buffalo, E. P. Dorr, who
had, in his early days, commanded a vessel on the lake, found himself,
shortly after, at a small port on the Canada shore, not far from Long
Point Island. Here he met an old shipmate, Captain Davis, whose vessel
had gone ashore at a more favorable point, and who related to him the
circumstances of the wreck of the Conductor. Struck by the account,
Captain Dorr procured a sleigh and drove across the frozen bay to the
shanty of Abigail Becker. He found her with her six children, all
thinly clad and barefooted in the bitter cold. She stood there six feet
or more of substantial womanhood,--not in her stockings, for she had
none,--a veritable daughter of Anak, broad-bosomed, large-limbed, with
great, patient blue eyes, whose very smile had a certain pathos, as if
one saw in it her hard and weary life-experience. She might have passed
for any amiable giantess, or one of those much--developed maids of honor
who toss