“That’s Emma,” said an old man before one of the bodies. He said it as coolly as though he spoke of his daughter in life, not in death, and as if it were not the fifth dead child of his that he had identified.
“Is that you, Mrs. James,” said one woman to another on the foot-bridge over Stony Creek.
“Yes, it is, and we are all well,” said Mrs. James.
“Oh, have you heard from Mrs. Fenton?”
“She’s left,” said the first woman, “but Mr. Fenton and the children are gone.”
The scenes at the different relief agencies, where food, clothing, and provisions were given out on the order of the Citizens Committee, were extremely interesting. These were established at the Pennsylvania Railroad depot, at Peter’s Hotel, in Adams Street, and in each of the suburbs.
At the depot, where there was a large force of police, the people were kept in files, and the relief articles were given out with some regularity, but at such a place as Kernsville, in the suburbs, the relief station was in the upper story of a partly wrecked house.
The yard was filled with boxes and barrels of bread, crackers, biscuit, and bales of blankets. The people crowded outside the yard in the street, and the provisions were handed to them over the fence, while the clothing was thrown to them from the upper windows. There was apparently great destitution in Kernsville.
“I don’t care what it is, only so long as it will keep me warm,” said one woman, whose ragged clothing was still damp.
The stronger women pushed to the front of the fence and tried to grab the best pieces of clothing which came from the windows, but the people in the house saw the game and tossed the clothing to those in the rear of the crowd. A man stood on a barrel of flour and yelled out what each piece of clothing was as it came down.