“Oh, indeed? And didn’t he earn enough to pay his way down here? He says he rode in the cars.”
“I’ll ask him about that,” said Ruth, musingly.
But she forgot to do so just then. In fact there was another problem in both the girls’ minds: What would become of Curly when the water subsided and he would have to be taken away from the hotel?
“Nettie says there is a hospital in Georgetown. But it is a private institution. Curly will be laid up a long while with that leg. It is a compound fracture and it will have to be kept in splints for weeks. The doctor says it ought to be in a cast. I wish he were in the hospital.”
“I suppose he would be better off,” said Helen, in agreement. “But isn’t it awful that his grandmother won’t take him back?”
“I don’t understand it at all,” sighed Ruth. “I didn’t think she was really so hard-hearted.”
The marooned guests of the hotel and the servants were quite comfortable in their quarters; but the women and girls did not care to descend to the lower floor of the big house. The men waded around the porches; and two men who owned cottages on the island which had not been swept away by the flood, used a storm-door for a raft and paddled themselves over to inspect their property. Their families were much better off with the Holloways at the hotel, however.
There had been landings and boats along the shore of the island; but not a craft was now left. The river had risen so swiftly the evening before, while the dancing was in full blast, that there had been no opportunity to save any such property.
Every small structure on the island had been swept down the current; and only half a dozen of the cottages were left standing. These structures, too, might go at any time, it was prophesied.
Jimson and his negroes could not get back across the river, and not a craft of any description came in sight.