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History of the Johnstown Flood: Including all the Fearful Record; the Breaking of the South Fork Dam; the Sweeping Out of the Conemaugh Valley; the Over-Throw of Johnstown; the Massing of the Wreck at the Railroad Bridge; Escapes, Rescues, Searches for Survivors and the Dead; Relief Organizations, Stupendous Charities, etc., etc., With Full Accounts also of the Destruction on the Susquehanna and Juniata Rivers, and the Bald Eagle Creek.Johnson, Willis Fletcher

History

History of the Johnstown Flood: Including all the Fearful Record; the Breaking of the South Fork Dam; the Sweeping Out of the Conemaugh Valley; the Over-Throw of Johnstown; the Massing of the Wreck at the Railroad Bridge; Escapes, Rescues, Searches for Survivors and the Dead; Relief Organizations, Stupendous Charities, etc., etc., With Full Accounts also of the Destruction on the Susquehanna and Juniata Rivers, and the Bald Eagle Creek.

Name: History of the Johnstown Flood: Including all the Fearful Record; the Breaking of the South Fork Dam; the Sweeping Out of the Conemaugh Valley; the Over-Throw of Johnstown; the Massing of the Wreck at the Railroad Bridge; Escapes, Rescues, Searches for Survivors and the Dead; Relief Organizations, Stupendous Charities, etc., etc., With Full Accounts also of the Destruction on the Susquehanna and Juniata Rivers, and the Bald Eagle Creek.
Author: Johnson, Willis Fletcher

Johnson, Willis Fletcher

Floods -- Pennsylvania -- Johnstown (Cambria County)

"She sat there," was the reply, "as if she was still praying, and there
was a smile on her poor little face, though her mouth was full of mud."

Driving through the mountains a correspondent picked up a ragged little
chap not much more than big enough to walk. From his clothing he was
evidently a refugee.

"Where are your folks?" he was asked.

"We're living at Aunty's now."

"Did you all get out?"

"Oh! we're all right--that is, all except two of sister's babies. Mother
and little sister wasn't home, and they got out all right."

"Where were you?"

"Oh! I was at sister's house. We was all in the water and fire. Sister's
man--her husband, you know--took us up-stairs, and he punched a hole
through the roof, and we all climbed out and got saved."

"How about the babies?"

"Oh! sister was carrying two of them in her arms, and the bureau hit her
and knocked them out, so they went down."

The child had unconsciously caught one of the oddest and most
significant tricks of speech that have arisen from the calamity. Nobody
here speaks of a person's having been drowned, or killed, or lost, or
uses any other of the general expressions for sudden death. They have
simply "gone down." Everybody here seems to avoid harsh words in
referring to the possible affliction of another. Euphonistic phrases are
substituted for plain questions. Two old friends met for the first time
since the disaster.

"I'm glad to see you," exclaimed the first. "Are you all right?"

"Yes, I'm doing first rate," was the reply.

The first friend looked awkwardly about a moment, and then asked with
suppressed eagerness:

"And--and your family--are they all--well?"

There was a world of significance in the hesitation before the last
word.

"Yes. Thank God! not one of them went down."

A man who looked like a prosperous banker, and who had evidently come
from a distance drove through the mountains toward South Fork. On the
way he met a handsome young man in a silk hat, mounted on a mule. The
two shook hands eagerly.

"Have you anything?"

"Nothing. What have you?"

"Nothing."

The younger man turned about and the two rode on silently through the
forest road. Inquiry later developed the fact that the banker-looking
man was really a banker whose daughter had been lost from one of the
overwhelmed trains. The young man was his son. Both had been searching
for some clue to the young woman's fate.




CHAPTER XIII.

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