The eastern coast of New England is famous for its thunder-storms, and
in the summer of 1872 there was one in the midst of nearly every
afternoon. A number of persons were killed by the lightning that season,
and Whittier also met with a narrow escape. It was one of the last days
of June, and from our piazza we could see the masses of black cloud
rolling down the Merrimac Valley, not thinking of the imminent peril,
which they were bringing to our poet. At the same time Miss Lizzie
Whittier and a lady friend were seated in the room on the right hand of
the front-door, when crash! an electric bolt came through the wall like
a rifle-shot, just above her friend's head, laying her out upon the
floor, shivering a mirror into splinters; then went through the doorway
and meeting John G. Whittier in the front hall, knocked him senseless,
and seizing two slats from a blind it escaped through an open window
into the garden. Miss Lizzie was the first to regain her feet, and her
anxiety and terror, when she saw her uncle lying senseless on the floor,
may readily be surmised. It proved, however, that none of them were
seriously injured, though their heads were confused and unserviceable
for several days, and they did not wholly recover from the effects of
this _coup d' eclair_ until after an excursion to the Isles of
Shoals.
[Illustration: WHITTIER'S HOUSE AT AMESBURY.
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