“Of course, and I just loved to go. Last April it was raining almost all the time. It was often hard to get even to church, and the rivers and streams around Dayton kept rising higher and higher. People said that if the rain didn’t stop, there would be a terrible flood. Well, the rain didn’t stop, and one day in May after three days of terrible rain I went to church, received Communion and started home.”
“Were you alone?”
“I was that morning. Generally some one of the family came with me; but the ground was so muddy that morning that my big sister who had intended coming with me backed out.”
“If I’d been there, I’d have gone with you,” volunteered her gallant companion.
“Anyhow, I had hardly got more than half a mile towards my home, when a man and two women came running past me. They were very scared-looking and out of breath. As they passed me the man said, ‘The dam! the dam! It’s broken! Run for your life!’ Just then a lot of other people came running, and I turned around, and do you know what I saw?”
“What?” cried Clarence.
“Men and women and children all running towards me, and further back—maybe it was two or three miles—a sort of a wall of water, and it was moving towards me.”
“Good gracious!” exclaimed Clarence. “What did you do?”
“I started to run and I did run. After a while, I got so out of breath that I began to stagger. I looked behind and it seemed to me that the wall of water was getting closer, and I started to run again. Somehow I hit my foot against a log and fell, rolling over to one side of the road, and when I tried to get up I couldn’t use my foot. I had turned my ankle.”
“Oh, I say,” exclaimed Clarence, “What did you do then?”