“The books!” he shrieked, “Why in heaven’s sake don’t you bring the books?”
A swagger young woman came to the door with a handsome mantel clock and walked calmly down the stairs. “Please put this in some especially safe place, please,” she said, as composedly as though this were nothing more than any ordinary moving day.
Down the street I saw a woman with the bearing of a patrician shoving at the rear of a push cart, loaded with all of the few things she could save; a servant was drawing it.
Behind came a young girl, who half turned for a last look at the house, and burst out crying. Her mother left the load for a moment and comforted her. “Never mind, dear,” she said. “Don’t cry! See, mamma isn’t crying.”
“Mamma” knew that in a few minutes her home and all the property she had in the world would die in the fire just as her husband’s business had already done; but mamma wasn’t crying.
On the corner of Van Ness avenue and Broadway, I saw a girl well dressed, who had evidently been driven out from there. All she had saved was a bed tick filled with something. As it was very hot, and she was very tired, she had spread it on the pavement, and was watching the throng from under her parasol.
I saw another girl in a trig outing suit and little patent-leather shoes, toss a bundle, done up in a sheet, over her shoulder and walk away in the procession with the most fascinating nonchalance.
One woman I saw going away in an elegantly-fitted private carriage. It was drawn by two horses with tails about two inches long and soaring; so she must have been near the top of the Upper Crust.
She, too, joined in the flight. Just as she got to the bottom of the hill she had the driver stop. I saw her turn and take a last wistful look from her carriage window at her doomed home. She was not attempting to take anything with her. Like many others, she had simply locked her door and gone.
Many of these people, rich one day, are practically paupers on the morrow. Many of them slept outdoors in the parks under a blanket, afraid to sleep in their own palatial homes.