“We are only just beginning to find out what this awful calamity has been to the people in this vicinity. The first shock is wearing off, the long lists of dead and missing are getting to be an old story now, and the sick and suffering are crawling into our places of refuge. Some of them have been sleeping on the open prairies ever since the storm, most of them, in fact, men with broken arms and legs, sick women and ailing children.
“They crawl out of the wreck of their homes and lie down on the bare ground to die. Our relief corps are finding them and bringing them in as fast as they can. Dr. Johnson and his party came in from the Galveston district and reported that they found over 5,000 people and attended medically about 200 patients.
“While we were standing at the door of the hospital talking things over a man rode up on horseback. He threw his arms up to attract our attention.
“‘Is this the relief hospital?’ he said.
“Dr. Johnson told him that it was.”
“‘I’ve come in from the Brazos bottoms,’ he said. ‘The folks there are starving. There is not a pound of flour left and the children are crying for milk. There are so many sick people there that we don’t know what to do. Can you send some one down?’
“Dr. Johnson had not slept for twenty-four hours. He had not had time to get a full meal for thirty-six hours. He was worn out and travel stained, but he heard what the man told him.
“‘All right,’ he said. He picked up his coat, put on his hat and turned to his assistants. ‘Come on, boys,’ he said. ‘Let us go down and get the cars into shape. We’ll get down to your place, my man, just as fast as the Lord will let us.’
“The man on horseback leaned over his saddle and tried to speak. Something in his face frightened me, I called to two doctors. They ran out and caught him. He was in a dead faint. When we had brought him to he laughed sheepishly. ‘I don’t know what’s the matter with me,’ he said. ‘Ain’t never been taken this way before.’ The doctors looked at each other and smiled, but the nurses’ eyes were full of tears. The man had not tasted food for thirty-six hours, and he had ridden fifty miles in the broiling sun of Texas. Dr. Crossway and his men are down the island relieving the sick and burying the dead.