History of the Johnstown Flood / Including all the Fearful Record; the Breaking of the South Fork Dam; the Sweeping Out of the Conemaugh Valley; the Over-Throw of Johnstown; the Massing of the Wreck at the Railroad Bridge; Escapes, Rescues, Searches for Survivors and the Dead; Relief Organizations, Stupendous Charities, etc., etc., With Full Accounts also of the Destruction on the Susquehanna and Juniata Rivers, and the Bald Eagle Creek.

by Willis Fletcher Johnson

Driving through the mountains a correspondent picked up a ragged little chap not much more than big enough to walk. From his clothing he was evidently a refugee.

“Where are your folks?” he was asked.

“We’re living at Aunty’s now.”

“Did you all get out?”

“Oh! we’re all right—that is, all except two of sister’s babies. Mother and little sister wasn’t home, and they got out all right.”

“Where were you?”

“Oh! I was at sister’s house. We was all in the water and fire. Sister’s man—her husband, you know—took us up-stairs, and he punched a hole through the roof, and we all climbed out and got saved.”

“How about the babies?”

“Oh! sister was carrying two of them in her arms, and the bureau hit her and knocked them out, so they went down.”

The child had unconsciously caught one of the oddest and most significant tricks of speech that have arisen from the calamity. Nobody here speaks of a person’s having been drowned, or killed, or lost, or uses any other of the general expressions for sudden death. They have simply “gone down.” Everybody here seems to avoid harsh words in referring to the possible affliction of another. Euphonistic phrases are substituted for plain questions. Two old friends met for the first time since the disaster.