Page:The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18.djvu/366

358 age and condition were hurrying through the streets, laden with everything imaginable,—especially looking-glasses, which seem the one important thing to be saved during a fire. My brother and cousin had not yet made their appearance, nor had we seen anything of my brother-in-law, from the other end of the city. But we knew they must be at their places of business, which were now in the heart of the burning district. Swiftly the destruction hurried towards us; and people were now seen bringing in their goods and seeking shelter on our premises. O what heart-broken faces surrounded us that fearful night! Friends, and people we had never seen, alike threw themselves on our kindness; and I must say that a spirit of humanity and good-will seemed everywhere prevalent among the citizens. We were now ourselves tortured by suspense. Could we escape, or should we again have to seek refuge from the flames? Surely the work of destruction would stop before it reached India Street? The hot breath of the maddening fire, and its lurid glare, were the only response. O, if the wind would only change! But a vane, glistening like gold in the firelight, steadfastly pointed to the southeast. For one moment it veered, and our hearts almost stood still with hope; but it swung back, and a feeling of despair settled upon us.

Our house was full. One poor lady, with a little baby only a week old, lay on a sofa in one of the rooms; near her, bent over in a rocking-chair, sat an old woman who had not been out of her house for five years, with a look of hopeless bewilderment on her wrinkled face. But people were now beginning to move from our house. India Street was almost blocked up. Every kind of vehicle that went upon wheels, from a barouche to a wheelbarrow, passed by laden with furniture.

At this moment my brother and brother-in-law approached, blackened almost beyond recognition. It was not until C spoke that I really knew him.

"We must be calm and collected, and save what we can. John is trying to get a team to carry mother up to L's; the rest of us will have to go to the graveyard. But John may not be successful, so you stay here, and see if you can get any one to take mother: they may do it for you, when they wouldn't for a man."

I stood on the edge of the sidewalk, clinging to the horse-post, and appealed in vain to wagons going by.

"Won't you take a lady and children away from here?"

"I can't, ma'am, not if you was to give me twenty-five dollars,—not if you was to give me five hundred. I'm taking a load for a gentleman now."

So it was in every case. Very many were worse off than we were,—had not even a man to help. One well-known citizen was appealed to for help, in the early part of the evening, by a poor woman,—a sort of dependant of his family. He took her and her daughter, with their effects, outside the city, and returned to find India Street on fire and no means of getting through the crowd to his house, which was burned, with all that was not saved by the exertions of his wife. They had visiting them a lady whose child lay dead in the house, awaiting burial. The mother took the little corpse in her arms and carried it herself up to the other end of the city!

While I was making these vain attempts, John drove up in a light, open-topped buggy. We hurriedly got mother and E into it, and gave into their charge the jewelry and silver, and they drove away. I could not but tremble for their safety. The road seemed impassable, so dense was the struggling crowd. On every side the fire was raging. Looking up India Street it was one sheet of flame, and equally so before us. It looked like a world on fire, for we could see no smoke,—it was too near for that,—and the heat was terribly intense.

There was no time to be lost. Both our servants and M's were away spending the Fourth, so we had to