close upon the heels of the first, but their lips were pressed, eyes
were straining towards the distant goal, and all would have been pale
but for the glare of the fire. Fortunately for most of them, men as well
as women, they had either children, pets, or even more cumbersome
belongings to claim their immediate attention; no time for either
thought or despair. They pushed trunks to which skates had been
attached, or pulled them by ropes; they trundled sewing-machines and
pieces of small furniture, laden with bundles. Many carried
pillow-cases, into which they had stuffed a favorite dress and hat, an
extra pair of boots and a change of underclothing, some valuable
bibelot or bundle of documents; to say nothing of their jewels and what
food they could lay hands on. Several women wore their furs, as an
easier way of saving them, and children carried their dolls. Their state
of mind was elemental. They lived acutely in the present moment and
looked neither behind nor before--save to a goal of safety. Misfortune
had descended upon them, and ruin no doubt would follow, but for the
present they asked no more than to save what they could carry or propel,
and to get far beyond that awful fire. The refinements of sentiment and
all complexity were forgotten; they indulged in nothing so futile as
complaint, nor even conversation. And the sense of the common calamity
sustained them, no doubt, deindividualized them for the hour. Soon after
they became their normal selves once more, and accepted the hard
conditions of the following weeks with the philosophy that was to be
expected of them. But underneath all the recovered gayety and defiant
pride of the later time more than one spirit was sprained, haunted with
a sense of dislocation, permanently saddened by the loss not of fortune
but of personal treasures, of old homes full of life-long associations,
never to be replaced nor regained. Many no doubt were better off for
losing those old anchors that held them to the past and emphasized their
years, besides keeping their sorrows green, but others had one reason
less for living. Nevertheless the philosophy born of a lifetime in an
earthquake country, of the electric climate, of their isolation, as well
as the good Anglo-Saxon strain in so many of them, brought a genuine
rebound to all physically capable of it, both old and young. But to-day
they were primitive--and entirely human. They helped one another, the
stronger carrying the weaker