Dear Enemy

But meanwhile we at the house were having sensations. The doctor's first

question upon arrival had been:

"You've counted the children? You know they're all here?"

"We've made certain that every dormitory was empty before we left it," I

replied.

You see, they couldn't be counted in that confusion. Twenty or so of the

boys were still in the dormitories, working under Percy Witherspoon

to save clothing and furniture, and the older girls were sorting over

bushels of shoes and trying to fit them to the little ones, who were

running about underfoot and wailing dismally.

Well, after we had loaded and despatched about seven car loads of

children, the doctor suddenly called out:

"Where's Allegra?"

There was a horrified silence. No one had seen her. And then Miss Snaith

stood up and SHRIEKED. Betsy took her by the shoulders, and shook her

into coherence.

It seems that she had thought Allegra was coming down with a cough, and

in order to get her out of the cold, had moved her crib from the fresh

air nursery into the store room--and then forgotten it.

Well, my dear, you know where the store room is! We simply stared at one

another with white faces. By this time the whole east wing was gutted

and the third-floor stairs in flames. There didn't seem a chance that

the child was still alive. The doctor was the first to move. He snatched

up a wet blanket that was lying in a soppy pile on the floor of the

hall and sprang for the stairs. We yelled to him to come back. It simply

looked like suicide; but he kept on, and disappeared into the smoke. I

dashed outside and shouted to the firemen on the roof. The store room

window was too little for a man to go through, and they hadn't opened it

for fear of creating a draft.

I can't describe what happened in the next agonizing ten minutes. The

third-floor stairs fell in with a crash and a burst of flame about five

seconds after the doctor passed over them. We had given him up for lost

when a shout went up from the crowd on the lawn, and he appeared for an

instant at one of those dormer windows in the attic, and called for the

firemen to put up a ladder. Then he disappeared, and it seemed to us

that they'd never get that ladder in place; but they finally did, and

two men went up. The opening of the window had created a draft, and they

were almost overpowered by the volume of smoke that burst out at the

top. After an eternity the doctor appeared again with a white bundle in

his arms. He passed it out to the men, and then he staggered back and

dropped out of sight!