Taking my boy to Sidney and putting him under the care of my half sister, I went to Boston, where I met two friends of mine who were about going to Meredith Bridge, N.H., to fish through the ice on Lake Winnipiseogee.  It was early in January, 1853, and good, clear, cold weather.  They represented the sport to be capital, and said that plenty of superb lake trout and pickerel could be taken every day, and urged me to go with them.  As I had nothing special to do for a few days, I went.  When we reached Meredith we stopped at a tavern near the lake, kept by one of the oddest landlords I have ever met.  After a good supper, as we were sitting in the barroom, the landlord came up to me and at once opened conversation in the following manner: 

“Waal, where do you come from, anyhow?”

“From Boston,” I replied.

“Waal, what be you, anyhow?”

“Well, I practice medicine, and take care of the sick.”

“Dew ye?  Waal, do ye ever cure anybody?”

“O, sometimes; quite frequently, in fact.”

“Dew ye! waal, there’s a woman up here to Lake Village, ’Squire Blaisdell’s wife, who has had the dropsy more’n twelve years; been filling’ all the time till they tell me she’s bigger’n a hogshead now, and she’s had a hundred doctors, and the more doctors she has the bigger she gets; what d’ ye think of that now?”

I answered that I thought it was quite likely, and then turned away from the landlord to talk to my friends about our proposed sport for to-morrow, mentally making note of ’Squire Blaisdell’s wife in Lake Village.

After breakfast next morning we went out on the lake, cut holes in the ice, set our lines, and before dinner we had taken several fine trout and pickerel, the largest and finest of which we put into a box with ice, and sent as a present to President Pierce, in Washington.  We had agreed, the night before, to fish for him the first day, and to send him the best specimens we could from his native state.  After dinner my friends started to go out on the ice again, and I told them “I guess’d I wouldn’t go with them, I had fished enough for that day.”  They insisted I should go, but I told them I preferred to take a walk and explore the country.  So they went to the lake and I walked up to Lake Village.

I soon found Mr. Blaisdell’s house, and as the servant who came to the door informed me that Mr. Blaisdell was not at home, I asked to see Mrs. Blaisdell, And was shown in to that lady.  She was not quite the “hogshead” the landlord declared her to be, but she was one of the worst cases of dropsy I had ever seen.  I introduced myself to her, told her my profession, and that I had called upon her in the hope of being able to afford her some relief; that I wanted nothing for my services unless I could really benefit her.

“O, Doctor,” said she, “you can do nothing for me; in the past twelve years I have had at least forty different doctors, and none of them have helped me.”