Individuals and groups were concerned as to the direction to take in seeking to escape the oncoming flames. I joined a company of a dozen or more, broken into smaller groups later, who decided on going directly west on Ohio Street to as near the North Branch as we could get, thence northward toward Fullerton Avenue, then the city limits, which no one thought of as ever likely to be reached by the fire. Some of the others decided to go directly north into Lincoln Park. That was a bad choice. Others decided that they would go east on Ohio Street to the lake and be in safety on the beach which was very wide at that point. That was the worst choice. I recall a lady and her family taking that direction. When next I saw her she was minus much of her hair, eyebrows and eyelashes. They had been scorched off by the intense heat in spite of the fact that she sat in the lake and frequently ducked her head into the water. In a very short time we had carried two trunks about three blocks west on Ohio Street and leaving two people to guard them, two returned to the house, threw two more trunks down the stairs and out into the street and carried them to the place where the others were guarded. We returned a second time for our books and carried some armfuls a block or two away and placed them alongside an alley fence. During this time there was, of course, the greatest excitement on all sides as people were leaving their houses with whatever they could carry. The fire had now crossed the river and was making rapid progress on the North Side. One scene took place, the relation of which will bring a sympathetic thought for an unknown book lover from all my hearers. I was on the walk in front of the boarding house when my attention was called to a gentleman who had a set of beautifully bound books in his two arms. He explained to an expressman that they were a set of Shakespeare and was asking him to take and move the books. He declined because he said he was trying to save his own goods. The gentleman then offered him $50.00 to carry the books to a place of safety. This was declined on the ground that he must go quick to save his family. Then the gentleman said “won’t you take and save the books if I make you a present of them?” “Yes,” he would. “Then take them,” said the owner, as he put them into the wagon, turned away and burst into tears. At our second return to the house there were few people in the immediate vicinity. I saw one man whom I knew as a leather dealer weeping bitterly as he stood at the corner taking a farewell look at the home he owned which was so soon to go up in flames, and while that saddened me, another incident gave me a hearty laugh. It was the sight of a man simply crazy rushing up Dearborn Street with a window blind under one arm but clearly under the impression that he was saving a valuable household article.