A Woman who went to Alaska Part 11

In the kitchen we did not lack voluntary a.s.sistants when work pushed, or there was what we called "a rush." One young man would fill the water buckets at a neighboring hydrant, another would bring in coal, and some other would carry away refuse.

Happy, indeed, were the great numbers of dogs fed from the "Star"

kitchen. No beggar was ever turned away. No homeless and discouraged soul, whether man or woman, sober or drunken, was allowed to leave as forlorn as he entered. Men often sat down at the tables, who, when filled with good food and hot drink, in a warm and comfortable room fell asleep from the effects of previous stimulants and sank to the floor.

When this happened some strong and helpful arm a.s.sisted such a one with friendly advice, to the street.

The two sisters were now our nearest neighbors, the third and married one having gone with her husband to live in a new cottage of their own in another part of the town. The eldest of the two had kindly offered me lodging in the back part of their store building of which our restaurant rooms were a half, and from which we were only separated by a board part.i.tion. This was a temporary arrangement until I could find something that suited me close at hand, as I chose to be near my work on account of going to my room in the evening after my duties were done. The sisters themselves still lived in their large warehouse a few feet back from the store, and between it and the surf which rolled ceaselessly upon the sands.

I was now more comfortably lodged than since I had landed at Nome. My canvas cot, placed in the back of the store, vacant except for a few rolls of carpeting, matting and oil cloth on sale by the sisters, stood not far from the large coal heater in which fire was kept during the day, making the room warm and dry when I came in at night. Near the foot of my cot a good window admitted light and sunshine, and a door opened upon a flight of six stairs into a tiny square yard before one entered the warehouse, where lived the sisters. This latter building was made of corrugated iron, on piles, with windows and a door in the south end looking directly out upon the water only a few feet away, and was fitted cosily enough for the summer, but not intended for anything further except storage purposes. A second door in the north end, opposite the one in the store, and only separated from it by the little yard was the door generally used. At this time lodgings without fire were worth dollars a night in crowded Nome, and one's next neighbors might prove themselves anything but desirable.

Meanwhile we worked steadily. Many of the Anvil Creek mine owners and their men took meals at the "Star" whenever in town. Some of their office employees came regularly. Hundreds were "going outside" on boats, and all was bustle and excitement. At least twenty-five thousand people had landed at Nome during the summer, and fully one-half of them had gone home discouraged.

On Sunday, September second, there came up a most terrible storm, which, for the velocity of its gales, tremendous downfall of rain, terrific surf, accompanied by great loss of life, as well as length of duration, had not been equalled for over twenty years. Never before was the property loss so great on the Behring Sea coast.

By nine o'clock Sunday morning the large steamers at anchor had put far out to sea for safety. The wind rose, the rain poured. The surf was growing more rough. At dinner time those who came in reported the dead bodies of nine men picked up on the beach. They had attempted to land from a steamer, and their small boat was swamped. One of the men drowned was the mate of the vessel. For days the storm lasted and our work increased. It was not long before the continuous rain had penetrated our little kitchen roof and walls, roughly built as they were of boards, and from that on we worked in rubber boots and short skirts tucked still higher. With the storm at its hardest, I donned a regular "sou'wester,"

or water proof hat, rather than stand with the rain dripping upon my head, and a cape of the same material covered my shoulders.

People living in tents when the storm began--and there were thousands--had been washed out, or been obliged to leave them, and could not get their own meals. The "Star" swarmed with hundreds who had never been there before, as well as those in the habit of coming. Ten days pa.s.sed. Sometimes there would be a lull in the storm for a few hours and we hoped it was over, but the surf ran high and could not return before the wind again lashed it into fury.

One midnight, when I was sleeping soundly after an unusually hard day's duties in the kitchen, there came a hasty knock at my door.

"Let me in quick Mrs. Sullivan, the warehouse, we fear, is going. We must come in here. We will bring some more of our things," and little sister dropped the armful of clothing she carried and ran back for more.

Sure enough, as I looked, the water surged up under the warehouse to the foot of the steps. When she returned with another load I offered to dress and a.s.sist them, but she said they would only bring the clothing and bedding, and I better go back to bed.

Breathlessly the sisters worked for a time, until the tide prevented them from again entering the warehouse, and they made their bed near me on the floor. When, after watching the waters, they felt satisfied that they receded, they retired, weary and troubled, hoping that before another high tide the storm would have subsided and the danger would be past.

By September twelfth the surf was the worst we had ever seen it, and Snake River had overflowed its banks. Most of those on the Sandspit were obliged to flee for their lives. Hundreds were homeless on the streets.

The town's whole water-front was washed away. Tents not only went down by hundreds, but buildings of every description were swept away and flung by the angry surf high up on the sands.

Anch.o.r.ed lighters and barges were loosened from their moorings and came ash.o.r.e, as did schooners broken and disabled. Dead bodies were each day picked up on the beach, which was strewn with wreckage.

One dark night, when the rain had ceased for a time to give place to a fearful gale which tossed the maddened waters higher and higher, there appeared upon the horizon a dim, portentous shape. At first it was only a form, indistinct and uncertain. As we watched longer, it gradually a.s.sumed the semblance of a ship. Keen eyes soon discerned a huge, black hulk, of monstrous size when riding the crest of the breakers, smaller and partially lost to sight when buried at intervals in the trough of the sea.

A ship was drifting helplessly, entirely at the mercy of the elements, and must soon be cast upon the beach at our feet. Approaching swiftly as she was, in the heavy sea, as the violence of the wind bore her onward, lights appeared as signals of distress, telling of souls on board in fearful danger.

In dismay we watched the helpless, on-coming vessel. We were in direct line of her path as she was now drifting. If by chance the mountain of water should, by an awful upheaval, rear the wreck upon its crest at landing, we would be engulfed in a moment of time. No power could save the buildings which would be instantly shivered to heaps of floating debris.

Should we flee for our lives? Or would the wind, quickly, by some miracle, change its course, and thereby send the menacing vessel to one side of us or the other? Groups of patrolmen and soldiers everywhere watched with anxious eyes, and friends stood with us to encourage and a.s.sist if needed.

G.o.d alone could avert the awful, impending disaster. He could do so, and did.

When only a few hundred feet from sh.o.r.e, the huge black ma.s.s, rearing and tossing like a thing of life in the raging sea, swerved to the west by a sudden veer of the wind, and then, amid the roar of breakers angry to ferocity, she, with a boom as of cannon in battle, plunged into the sands of the beach only a hundred and fifty feet away.

The earth trembled. With one long, quivering motion, like some dumb brute in its death struggle, the ship settled, its great timbers parting as it did so, and the floods pouring clean over its decks. Then began the work of rescuing those on board, which was finally, after many hours, successfully accomplished.

CHAPTER XII.

BAR-ROOM DISTURBANCES.

"Girls, O girls!" shouted Mary from the kitchen door in order to be heard above the waters, "Do come inside!" Then, as we answered her call and closed the door behind us, she said: "The danger is over now, and you can't help those poor people in the wreck. There are plenty of men to do that. See! it is nearly midnight, and we shall have another hard day's work tomorrow. Go to bed like good children, do."

"How about yourself, ma?" said Ricka, carrying out the farce of mother and children as we often did, Mary being the eldest of the four.

"I'm going too, as soon as I get this pancake batter made, for I'm dead tired. We will hear the particulars of the wreck at breakfast," replied Mary.

"Poor things! How I pity them. What an awful experience for women if there were any on board," said sympathetic Ricka, and I left them talking it over, to roll into my cot, weary from twelve hours of hard work and excitement.

No anxiety, and no thundering of the breakers could now keep me awake, and for hours I slept heavily.

Suddenly I was wide awake. No dream or unusual sound had roused me. Some new danger must be impending. My pulses throbbed. The clock at the head of my cot ticked regularly, and its hands pointed to four. The sisters slept peacefully side by side. The whole town seemed resting after the intense and continued anxiety caused by the storm, and I wondered why I had wakened.

However, something impelled me to get up, and, rising quietly from my cot in order not to arouse the others, I went to the south window and peered out.

My heart fairly stood still.

The waters were upon us! They had already covered the lower steps at the door not six feet from the cot on which I had slept. I stood motionless.

If I knew that the waters were receding, I would go quietly to bed, allowing the others to sleep an hour longer; but if they were rising there was no time to lose. None could reckon on the tides now, for all previous records had been recently broken. I would wait and watch a few minutes, I decided, and I wrapped a blanket around me, for my teeth chattered, and I shivered.

How cruel the water looked as I watched it creep closer and closer. How quietly now it swept at flood tide up through the piles under the warehouse, covering the little back yard and the kitchen steps of the restaurant. With the cunning of a thief it was creeping upon us in the darkness when we were asleep and helpless.

Would the resistless waters persist in our destruction? Where should we go in the storm if obliged to fly for our lives?

Twenty minutes pa.s.sed.

Another step was covered while I watched--the tide was rising.

Crossing the room now to where my friends lay sleeping, I touched little sister upon the shoulder.

"Wake up! Wake up! The tide is coming,--the water is almost at the door!

I have been watching it for twenty minutes, and I'm sure we ought to be dressed," said I, trying to keep my voice steady so as neither to betray my fright nor startle them unnecessarily.

Springing from their bed they hurried to the window and looked out.

"I should say so!" exclaimed the younger lady in dismay.

"These treacherous waters will not give us up. They want us, and all we possess, and are literally pursuing us, I believe," groaned Miss S., the older sister, struggling to get hastily into her clothing. "But we must waken the girls," she said, rapping on the intervening wall, and calling loudly for the three other women who still slept soundly from fatigue.

With that, we all dressed, and began to pack our belongings; I putting my rubber blanket upon the floor and rolling my bedding in that. This I tied securely, and dragged to the street door, packing my bags and trunk quickly for removal if necessary.

In the restaurant none knew exactly what to do. The water had covered the back steps, and the spray was dashing against the kitchen door.

Underneath, the little cellar, dug in the dry sand weeks before, and used as a storing place for tents, chairs, vegetables and coal sacks, was filled with water which now came within a foot of the floors. From sheer force of habit, Mary began building a fire in the range, and I to pack the spoons, knives and forks in a basket for removal. Ricka thought this a wise thing to do, but Alma remonstrated.

"The water will not come in. You need not be afraid. If it does, we will only run out into the street, leaving everything. Let us get breakfast now, the people are coming in to eat," and this very matter-of-fact young woman began laying the tables for the morning meal. It was six o'clock. The men soon began to pour into the dining room hungry, wet, and cold. Many had been out all night a.s.sisting in the rescue work or patrolling the beach, inspecting each heap of wreckage in search of dead bodies and valuables, for many among the missing were supposed to have perished in the storm.