As was her custom, Dorothy offered up her own prayer at her mother's knee. A sweet confidence in religious matters had always existed between child and mother, and there was never any restraint in the expression of the little one's thought toward God. Tired though she was, her "poetry prayers," as she called them, were said in full, and then her own additions followed. "Thank you for taking care of us all, and we are glad that papa and mamma and Angus and Dorothy are all here. Help the little boy's mamma to find him, and please to take care of the poor Italian woman now that her little girl is gone to heaven. Bless papa and mamma and Angus, and make me a good girl, and please help us to get another home soon, for Jesus' sake. Amen."
The fire had almost spent itself by nightfall, and with the dawn the long-wished-for rain began to fall. By the middle of the forenoon the danger of any further outbreak was past. The construction gang from the East, and a number of section men from the West, were immediately put to work at clearing the track and repairing culverts and bridges.
By the middle of the afternoon a number of men who had fled from the burning town were able to make the return trip. For four or five miles the outlook from the car-windows was a very dreary one. The underbrush had been entirely burned up, and of the standing timber little but charred, jagged remnants of tree-trunks remained. Only here and there had a telegraph pole escaped, and even the protruding ends of many of the railway ties had smouldered to the ballast.
The entire business section of Carlton Mines was destroyed. A few isolated buildings in the residential portion north-west, and a few in the north-east had escaped, but all the rest had been reduced to ashes. What could be done under such circumstances? Who would have the courage to attempt a fresh start and face all the difficulties arising out of such a disaster? Who? Every man who that afternoon stood gazing at those ash-heaps. With that inextinguishable optimism that has its headquarters in Western Canada, they began then and there to formulate their plans. Several contracts for rebuilding were signed before night, and ere the ashes were cold, men started to rear a new and better town.
The preacher, with the rest of the impoverished ones, went back to his job. Not only did he assist in clearing away the debris, in preparation for a new church and manse, but many a lift did he give to others who were busily engaged in getting a roof over their heads.
During the months of rebuilding he preached successfully in the open-air, in shack-restaurant, sawmill, hotel, opera-house, and finally, after many disappointments and discouragements, in the new church.
Among the interesting contributions received by Mr. Nicholson for the Building Fund, was one from the mother of the boy who was "losted." When on the morning of the fire she was compelled to hastily leave her dwelling, she felt quite sure her little lad was with some of his playmates in a neighbour's home. On the way she discovered that her friends had already departed, but she was still hopeful that her boy was in their care. And so she had very gladly accepted a ride in one of the last vehicles leaving the town, and, after a rough and rapid drive, had reached a mining camp a mile or two south of Twyford. Her friends had gone in a different direction, and it was over twenty-four hours before she found them.
They could give her no news of her lost boy, and she began to fear that he had never left the town. Two days later, without having received any word of his whereabouts, she suddenly saw him, riding "pickaback" with arms twined around the neck of the Rev. Walter Nicholson.
Mr. Nicholson still delights to tell how the mother and child were unexpectedly brought face to face as he was turning the corner of a building. He professes to have confused memories of certain details, but states that before he had a chance to get the lad from his shoulders or extricate himself, he was the centre of the most vigorous hugging and kissing imaginable. When the overjoyed mother learned all that had taken place, her gratitude to those who had befriended her boy was simply unbounded. For some months after the fire she struggled along in a small shack several miles away from Carlton Mines. The following letter from her to Mr. Nicholson is reproduced exactly as written, except for corrections in spelling:
"DEAR SIR,—I shall thank you very much for what you have done to me. Never will I not forget it. It is sorry for me that I not can write much English. Dear Sir, I am well here, but the work is very still and so we not can get money. I went to the church on all the Sunday. I am glad to be a better woman. I wish you my blessing and Hans do it too. After 25th I will send you $1.00 for your another church.—G. KUYPER."