Democratic Sentinel, Volume 13, Number 32, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 30 August 1889 — Episode at Johnstown. [ARTICLE]

Episode at Johnstown.

A party driving through the mountains 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 upstairs, 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 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 “gonedown.” Everybody seems to avoid harsh words in referring to the possible affliction of another. Eunhonistic phrases are substituted for plain questions. Two old friends met for the first time since the disaster. “My God! I am 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 aud emotion: “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 evidently came 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.” 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 w r as his son. Both had been searching for some clew to the young woman’s fate, and each was ready to bear bad news to the other when they met.