They would crawl out of the wreck of their homes and lie down on the bare ground to die.
Relief parties found such as these every day and brought them into the hospitals as fast as possible. One relief party found 5,000 people in the vicinity of Galveston homeless, helpless, hopeless and tearless.
It was a sight to cause a stone statue to weep.
Monday, September 17, a man rode up to a hospital at Houston, and told the doctors he had just come from the Brazos bottoms.
Said he: “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?”
The physician in charge said he would go at once.
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 Texas sun.
More troops were called for on September 17 by Governor Sayers of Texas to relieve those on duty at Galveston who were worn out by their hard work. The response was prompt and hearty.