“As the trains came into the station the first cry was ‘Water, water.’ Six hundred or more were put off here at Taormina. We went down to the station at ten, worked there all day and did not get home till eleven or twelve at night. There were five or six trains during the day and as many during the night. The first week was the hardest work and kept us all jumping. In a few days we got settled and organized into committees. There were about three groups all working for the same thing, but each head was afraid some other head would get the greater credit and praise. Truth is, we were all working for humanity, to try and give the poor scared hungry souls food and drink and homes; it didn’t matter whether it was A, B or C; they all did splendid work and all worked with all their souls, and every one, including the Sicilian ladies and people from Russia, Germany, Austria and France, was only too glad to help. We gave away over three hundred loaves of bread a day, crackers, oranges, cooked polenta, everything that could be found to eat, milk, water and wine, all paid for by the _forestieri_, and a few of the townspeople. They were so much dazed for the most that it took them ten days to ‘come to.’ So many had lost friends that at first they could think of nothing else, and some were perfectly willing to stand by and let the strangers do the work. The first official action of the town authorities was on the eleventh day. I looked up from boiling some coffee for a train that was coming, and there stood the Mayor and two or three other short fat fathers of the town all talking at the tops of their voices, their hands and arms going in every direction. They were perfectly purple in the face and looked like so many bantam cocks ready to tear each other to pieces. I asked what the matter was? “The Mayor and the municipality had come down to forbid any more bread or food being given away; there would be a bread famine, a wheat famine; we were taking the bread out of the mouths of the Taorminesi, and soon there would be a mob and the people would break into our houses. We had on hand three hundred loaves of bread bought, paid for, and broken up. In spite of the city fathers the bread was given to the refugees on the next train. Then there was a rumor that the milk had given out. Just before I reached the station that day I met three men driving a herd of twenty goats; they had escaped with their goats from Messina. The milk was bargained for and fifteen quarts, good and fresh, was milked from the goats and paid for by some Boston girls.” A young lady, whose name is I think Miss Fernald, wrote the following story of what she saw at that station of Giardini to her brother: