They had no fire and no fuel. They had been for several days without food and were now so weak that they could scarcely speak above a whisper. The party consisted of a father, a mother, three big-eyed children, and a negro man.
The negro man, great stalwart fellow that he was, was now the most exhausted one of the party, while the youngest of the children, whom the others called “Baby,” as if she were yet too small to carry a name of her own, was still chipper and full of interest in the strange things about her when she was taken on board the flatboat.
The work of rescue occupied a considerable time and cost the boys some very hard work. The people on the mound were too feeble from hunger and long exposure even to help in their own deliverance. The negro man had to be lifted bodily into a skiff and laid out at full length upon its bottom. The rest, except “Baby” were not in much better condition. The man could walk indeed, in an unsteady way, but he was so dazed in his mind that it required force to keep him from dropping out of the skiff on the way to the flatboat.
The woman and the two older children were chewing strips of leather, cut from the man’s boot tops. The baby continually sucked its thumb.
People in such condition are very difficult to manage. They are physically incapable of doing anything to help themselves, and mentally just alert enough to interfere querulously with the efforts of others to help them. To get such a company into frail, unsteady skiffs, to row them away to the flatboat, and then to “hoist them aboard,” as Phil called the operation, required quite two hours of very hard work, but it was accomplished at last.
But to get them aboard was only the beginning of the work of rescue. They were starving and they must be fed. Phil was for setting out the remainder of the last evening’s boiled dinner at once and bidding them help themselves. But Irv’s superior knowledge of such matters prevented that disastrous blunder.
“Why, don’t you know, Phil, that to give them even an ounce of solid food now would be to kill them! Open a can of consomme, and heat it quick.”
When the soup was ready he peppered it lavishly, explaining to Ed:—
“The problem is not merely to get food into their stomachs, but to get their stomachs to turn the food to some account after we’ve got it there. In their weakened condition they can’t digest anything solid, and it is a serious question whether their stomachs can even manage this thin, watery soup. So I’m putting pepper into it as a ‘bracer.’ It will stimulate their stomachs to do their work.”
As he explained, he fed the soup to the sufferers—a single spoonful to each. They were clamorous for more, but Irv was resolute.