by Lois Lenski
“But mine are sick …” said one woman.
“We have only the clothes we are wearing,” said another woman.
“Food and clothing will be available at the Town Hall,” said Mrs. Bradford. “Don’t worry about that.”
“Can they take me and my family to Winsted?” asked Mrs. Nelson. “My sister lives there. She’ll take us in.”
“It is impossible to get to Winsted,” said Mrs. Bradford. “Winsted is hard hit. All the roads to the north are blocked. The only way to get even to Farmington is by Army duck.”
“I’m going to keep my kids with me,” said Mrs. Dillon. “We’re going to Vermont. My husband will find a way to get there.”
Slowly the women turned away. They herded their children and their few possessions out the door, where an Army duck stood waiting. The “duck” was a heavy cumbersome vehicle, constructed by the U.S. Army for land or water transportation.
“Is that a duck?” asked Sally. “I thought it was something that could fly.”
“No, it swims, silly,” said her brother Bobby. “It can float and also go on wheels. It’s a boat and a car for river or road.”
Women and children were being helped up the sides of the strange vehicle. It was surprising how many people the duck could hold. More and more got in.
“All families going to Wallace School come this way,” said the Civil Defense director.
Soon the duck moved off down the hill and onto the highway. Another took its place. When it was loaded, a third one came.
Several cars drove up. “All families going to friends in the high part of town will be taken in these cars. Come this way,” said the director.
The cars were quickly filled.
Mrs. Dillon refused to go in the duck and refused to go in the cars. Then Mr. Dillon came up.
“My wife don’t want our kids scattered,” he told the director, “and she don’t want to go to another school. I have a friend who works at the Benton Sand and Gravel Co. on Red Brick Road. That’s between Unionville and Farmington. He’ll give me a car, I think, to drive to my folks in Vermont.”
“Come on,” said the director. “We’ll drop you off at Red Brick Road.”
The Dillons, big and little, climbed into the last duck. Tommy turned around with a flourish and waved a gay good-bye.
“Last call for transportation to Farmington!” called the director.
Mrs. Graham hurried up, holding sick Sally by the hand and the baby in her arms. Bobby and Karen pulled Jack and Tim along. Rusty, as usual, was in Bobby’s arms, and Karen’s doll in hers. They started toward the duck. Mrs. Graham had decided to go along with the other families, since she could not return to their own home.
Sally had not seen Barbara and wondered where she was. She hated to go to Farmington without telling Barbara good-bye.
Suddenly Mrs. Boyd came rushing up.
“Oh, Carrie,” she cried. “You’re not going there. You are coming to our house. My husband came back with our car, and I drove over. The house is all right and we have permission to stay there. I’ve taken the Nelsons over and now I’ve come for you.”
“But will you have room for six children,” asked Mrs. Graham, “if you have the Nelsons too?”
“We’ll make room,” said Mrs. Boyd. “We’ll double up and the boys can sleep on the floor. I can’t let you go off to another school with that sick girl and those little ones. You’re coming to us.”
For the first time since Thursday night, Mrs. Graham began to cry.
“Oh, Alice,” she said, “what a good friend you are. The doctor has given Sally aureomycin, and she must be put to bed where I can watch her. It might be typhoid …or polio. She must be watched carefully.”
A soldier lifted sick Sally into Mrs. Boyd’s car. The boys were quiet and well behaved. The baby did not cry and the dog did not bark. All were happy to be going to the Boyds. It was wonderful to have good friends.
As soon as the car reached the Boyd home on the hill, Sally was taken indoors. Mrs. Nelson and Ruth were waiting to welcome the newcomers. The other children stood on the porch and looked around. Everything was changed. The neighbors’ houses on the streets toward the river were gone. There was a great waste of sand where the Dillon house had stood.
Mrs. Boyd talked to the children. “You must all stay on the sun porch,” she said. “No one without a pass is allowed to wander around.”
The children promised to obey. They were not allowed in the back yard either. From the window they could see that it was filled with overturned trees and bushes, stacks of lumber, wrecked cars and machinery and other things that had been washed down the river.
“There’s enough lumber out there to build a house,” said Dan.
“Gee!” said Ronnie. “I wonder where my bike is. I hope I didn’t leave it out in the yard. I hope it’s not buried under all that junk.”
But, inside the house, nothing was disturbed. It was clean, peaceful and comfortable. A home had never looked so good before. The children and grownups could, for a time at least, forget the destruction outside. The three women set to work at once, getting cots, couches and beds ready for the night.
Barbara tiptoed upstairs to see Sally asleep in a comfortable bed. Sally opened her eyes and asked, “What’s the noise?”
“The firemen’s pump,” said Barbara. “They’re pumping out the cellar.”
Barbara brought her some food on a tray, but Sally shook her head.
“I’m not hungry,” she said, “but I’m glad to be here.”
Barbara held Sally’s hand. “I’m glad you came.”
6
HAVEN OF REFUGE
“CAN’T WE EVER GO outside?” begged Barbara’s brother Ronnie.
“I’d like to go to a movie,” said Dan. He stopped for a moment, then added, “—if there was one.”
“No movies any more,” mourned Jerry Nelson. “Oh, I hate this old flood. I wish it had never come.”
“Well,” said Barbara, “at least we have a house.”
“Mother, can’t I go along in the car with you?” begged Ronnie. “Just for the ride? I’m tired of staying in the house.”
Mrs. Boyd said, “No, Ronnie, you cannot go anywhere. All of you must stay in. You know the reason why.” She went out the door and got in the car.
Sally was up and dressed now. Nothing serious had developed. She felt well, but she tired easily, so she lay on the couch in the living room, watching the other children. She thought of the times when they could jump in the family car and go wherever they pleased. She thought of the times when they lived more outdoors than in, when they explored every street and yard in River Bend. How they loved to ride their bikes down to the river for a swim or a boat ride, play cowboy and Indians together, then ride back to the store on the highway to buy ice cream. What good times they had! Now all that seemed long ago.
It was a new experience to be cooped up and to have to manufacture games out on the sun porch. There were ten children in all, not counting baby Betty—five Grahams, three Boyds and two Nelsons. Rusty, the dog, was always with them.
After Mrs. Boyd went away, the boys began to play noisily on the porch. Barbara and Karen brought a fashion magazine and settled on the floor by Sally’s couch. Karen kept her big cloth doll close beside her. The girls had scissors and they started cutting out pretty ladies. But the boys made so much noise, the girls could not talk.
Barbara went to the door of the porch.
“Boys, don’t be so noisy!” she said. “We can’t hear a thing.”
The boys went on playing and shouting. Rusty barked furiously. Barbara went back to them.
“What are you playing?” she demanded.
“We’re playing Crash-Up-on-a-Bike!” shouted Bobby.
“I’m playing Reckless Driver!” said Jerry Nelson.
“And I’m a Space-Ship Acrobat!” cried Ronnie.
Barbara laughed and told the girls, “They’re smashing up the whole world, I think.”
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br /> So it wasn’t as quiet and peaceful at the Boyd’s house as Sally had expected. But she was happy to be there instead of at a strange school.
“Gee! I’m thirsty! I want a drink,” said Ronnie.
“There’s no water and you know it, Ronnie Boyd,” scolded Barbara.
“I’m a camel, I live on a desert,” said Bobby Graham, “and if I don’t get a drink of water, I’ll die.”
“There’s some water in the birdbath,” said Barbara, looking out the window. “You might try that.”
When Mrs. Boyd returned, she brought two milk cans of water. It had come from a spring in the high part of town. It had to be boiled before it could be used, and there was no stove to heat it. So there were no drinks for the children.
Mrs. Graham and the boys found scraps of wood and old newspapers. They made a small bonfire in the yard, boiling a little water in a pail. Then it had to be set aside to cool. More milk cans of water were brought for use in the bathroom.
“Use as little water as you can,” said the women.
“We don’t have to wash our faces, do we?” cried the boys.
“No,” said Mrs. Graham.
The boys whooped with delight. Even Jack and Tim were happy about it. “No more baths, either,” they cried.
“You can all stay as dirty as you like,” said Barbara.
“Wash your hands in the birdbath before you eat,” said Mrs. Nelson.
Sally on her couch laughed and laughed.
“Oh Mother!” said Barbara. “Look at all this mud on the rugs. All these people are tracking mud into the house, the dog too.”
“Mud doesn’t matter just now,” said Mrs. Boyd. “We have more important things to think of. We have no food, no stove, no electricity, no water … and all these people in the house.”
Barbara brought a broom and mop to clean up the mud.
“They might at least wipe their shoes on that old rug I put out by the door,” she said.
Sally was almost asleep when Grandpa Dorsett and his wife came. Mrs. Boyd talked to them and when she found out they were homeless, she took them in. Sally moved to an easy chair, while Mrs. Boyd opened up the couch. The Dorsetts lay down and rested.
“Where is everybody going to sleep?” asked Karen, later.
The women had it all worked out. Mr. and Mrs. Graham, Sally, Karen and the baby were to take one bedroom, with double bed and cots, Mr. and Mrs. Boyd and Barbara the other bedroom. All six boys were to sleep on the floor in the sun porch. Mrs. Nelson and Ruth took the boys’ small bedroom, and the Dorsetts the living-room couch.
“I never thought I could house so many,” laughed Mrs. Boyd. “It’s a regular house party!”
Sally counted them up. “Eighteen in all!” she said.
“Some homes up on the hills have taken in as many as forty,” said Mr. Boyd. “That’s what I call a full house.”
“Gee! I’m hungry,” said Ronnie. “When do we eat?”
“There’s no electricity for cooking,” said Barbara. “You know that.”
“But we can’t starve to death,” said Bobby Graham.
“We’re trying to locate a kerosene stove,” said Mr. Boyd as he went out.
That first day there was nothing to eat but the same fare as before—cold soup, dry cereal without milk, canned peaches and stale cup cakes. The grownups ate in the dining alcove, and the children on the porch. They made a picnic out of it.
There was more of the same food for supper, but no one complained. When it grew dark, there were no lights. Everybody sat around for a while, then decided to go to bed.
On Monday, Mr. Graham brought word that food could be had at the Town Hall.
“I’ll go do the marketing,” said Dan Boyd eagerly.
“We’ll go along and help,” said Ronnie and Bobby.
“No,” said Mr. Graham. “From here to the Town Hall is disaster area. No children are allowed on the streets.”
“I’ll go,” spoke up Grandpa Dorsett. “I want to be useful. This is one thing I can do.”
“But there is no car for you to use,” said Mr. Graham.
“I can walk,” said Grandpa. “I had two legs long before I had a car. My car is gone, but I still have my two legs. I’m slow, but I’ll get there and back again.”
So Grandpa Dorsett became the provider. He walked to the Town Hall to get the food. He had to go two or three times a day to get enough. But he was happy doing it. There was little change in the diet, except the addition of baked goods donated by a bakery. But it was enough. No one at the Boyd house went hungry.
Each time the men came back, they brought news. The three Webb children were still missing. Policeman Atkins and young Joe Martin had been drowned when their boat capsized. Others, too, were gone. River Bend’s forty-five homes were now reduced to four. Unionville adjoining had similar serious losses. All the river towns along the Connecticut rivers, especially the Farmington and the Naugatuck, had been flooded. Not only was Connecticut affected, but parts of New Jersey, Pennsylvania and New York State. The heavy rains had come after two hurricanes, a week apart, and had left nothing but disaster in their path.
Every night at six o’clock, the town siren sounded a curfew. No one was allowed on the streets after that hour. Not only was the town a disaster area, but a health hazard as well. Grave fears were held of a possible typhoid epidemic. Darkness descended early and there was nothing to do at the Boyd house in the evenings but sit in the dark and talk.
“No lights to read by,” said Barbara.
“No radio, no TV to turn on,” said Ronnie.
“No movies to go to,” said Dan.
“If I only had a few candles,” said Mrs. Boyd, “it would be a little more cheerful. But all the stores are closed, so we cannot buy them.”
“Sitting in the dark is the hardest thing of all,” said Mrs. Nelson.
Mrs. Graham had gone to the Town Hall on several errands. When she returned, she had a bag full of candle stubs.
“I met Edith Johnson on the street,” she said, “and she gave them to me, bless her heart!”
That night, the house party had candlelight to brighten their spirits. It was a new experience for the children. They had not used candlelight before.
“But the corners of the room stay so dark,” said Barbara.
“The shadows are so big, it’s spooky!” said Karen.
“Your great-grandparents had no lights but candles,” Mrs. Boyd reminded them.
“And they read books in fine print,” said Mrs. Graham.
“Their eyes must have been better than ours then,” said Dan, picking up a magazine. “I’d have a hard time reading this.”
“I’m glad I didn’t live a hundred years ago,” said Bobby Graham. “I prefer electricity.”
“You wouldn’t have known a thing about it,” said Barbara. “Electricity wasn’t invented yet. What if Benjamin Franklin hadn’t sent up his kite?”
“Somebody else would have,” said Dan. “It was bound to come.”
“I think it must have been fun to dip candles in the olden days,” said Sally.
“It’s easier to push a button to turn on a light,” said Bobby.
“To cook on a fireplace, with all the pots hanging, must have been fun too,” said Barbara. “Maybe not fun, but interesting.”
“It’s easier to move the thermostat and start the oil burner going than to build a fire,” said Ronnie Boyd.
“Why should everything be so easy?” asked Barbara.
“You’re just lazy, Ronnie,” said Sally. “I bet it was fun.”
The lively discussion about old and new ways went on.
“Electricity is all right,” said Mrs. Boyd, “but when it goes off, what then? If you had no matches, what then?”
“I’d start a fire by rubbing two sticks together,” said Dan.
“And when the oil burner stops in the dead of winter,” said Mrs. Graham, “how would you keep warm?”
“I’d chop down trees for fue
l,” said Dan. “I’d get along all right.”
“Oh gee!” cried Bobby. “That’s too much like work—chopping down trees.”
“It’s fun,” said Dan. “I love to do it.”
“We are all getting too soft,” said Mrs. Boyd. “If our boys hate to chop wood and carry water, how can we meet disaster? How can we survive in an emergency when all these modern conveniences are cut off?”
Sitting by candlelight, they could all see each other’s faces. That made it more pleasant than sitting in the dark. The boys tried a game of checkers, and the girls got out parcheesi.
When Mrs. Boyd came home one day with a kerosene lamp, the children were more excited than ever.
“To think these poor children are so ignorant, they’ve never seen an oil lamp before!” cried Mrs. Boyd.
“We learned about them in school when we were studying the olden days,” said Sally.
“We’ve seen them in antique shops,” said Barbara, “but we never knew how they worked.”
Mrs. Boyd showed them how to raise and lower the wick. They took turns lighting the lamp, putting on the chimney, blowing out the flame, and lighting it again.
“When I was a girl,” said Mrs. Nelson, “we lived in the country and it was my job to fill the lamps and keep the chimneys clean. I didn’t enjoy it much.”
“These girls are lucky!” The women laughed.
“Just press a button, that’s all,” said Sally.
In spite of the comforts at the Boyd house and their continued kindness, Sally could see that her mother was getting restless. She herself was becoming more homesick every day.
“Oh Mother, can’t we ever go home again?” she asked.
“Yes, dear,” said Mrs. Graham, “but not till the house has been cleaned up, disinfected and inspected. It’s knee-deep in mud now.”
“Knee-deep?” cried Sally.
“Yes, I mean it,” said Mrs. Graham.
Barbara was listening. “And here I complained because people were tracking in mud on our carpet.”
Each day, Mrs. Graham went away with Mrs. Boyd in her car. Mrs. Nelson stayed at the house in charge of the children.
