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Show I cam give no adequate description of the fearful crashing and roaring and the almost constant flashes of lightening and peals of thunder. We waited in momentary expectation that the house might go to pieces over our heads. Suddenly papa, who could see out the north cellar window, said, "There goes the barn!" I passed the bafey whom I had been holding, to someone else, and ran to look too$ groaning with remorse, "My poor cows, my poor cows." I'm not sure how long we were in the cellar - perhaps a quarter of an hour, although it seemed much longer. Finally papa said that the storm seemed to have passed, and so we went up to view the damage. It was still raining very violently, and every pane of glass in:the north windows was broken out; many of the west side, and a few on the east, but none of the south windows. Angis and I were trying to fasten a,quilt over the north bedroom window, when papa called us down stairs. We ran in panic, fearing that the tornado had returned, but it was only a group of neighbors who had seen our light. Several were from next door to the west. Their house was moved off the foundation, so one side had dropped into the cellar, A person could scarecly stand up in it. Mr. Day's house, east of us, was riddled by timbers blown from our barn. Ho one was hurt there, and I don't snow where they went. Next east, Mr. Merills house was flat. He was down town when the storm struck, and his wife said that he had ran bac'r and forth over the timbers under which she lay. At last he and friends fonnd the family. Nettie had graduated from high school the day before, and her granparents from Des Moines were with them, ^ld Mrs. Heed seemed badly #urt, and was brought to our house on a matress, and laid in the middle of the dining room floor. (They said that the water was knee-deep in the strret in front.) I was st to watch her-- with a bowl of water handy, and she was nauseated. I remember she said, "I shall puke." I had never heard the word before. When the doctor finally arrived, after midnight - for so many people were hurt - I had brought pillows, quilts, and blankets down, and finally had a bed full length on the study floor, for a drenched a exhausted group had flocked to our light. The doctor wished to examine Mrs. Reed, and they were g6ing to cut her chemise in undressing her, but she wouldn't allow it. When her sodden clothing was removed, there was half of a brick o; the matress under her back. Money was sent to town for the benifit of sufferers but I don't know how much - - and what a lot of cyclone cellars were made that summer/ Tutor Magoun was calling afProf#§sor ChamberIain's and henhad ;run out to see his horse, tied in front. The wind was so strong that he caught ahold of a tree, and was flopped up and down against the ground, rolled round and round the tr^e. Afterwards he discovered his pockets full of corn from the overturned freight train a few rods away, and the horse and buggy were carried over the train to the west, but neither was damaged much. About three o'clock, when a lull came, papa said, ^Gome, Clare - let's see about the cows." I held the latern and put in preps as he worses. When a lot of timbers had been removed, old Nige scrambled out and seemed to have no injury. Then we-went to Bonnie's stall and dug her out. She was lame, b'ut she walked off into thr orchard. The front of the barn was comletely wrecked and the back, still In one piece, had fallen over it. As "Corny", Bonnie's calf, was in the back stall, papa feared that her legs were broken, at least, but we "better try and see". Again I held the light and put in supports while he used a timber as a lever and raised the sill enough so that he could creep under. In a few moments he backda out, nulling the celf by its front feet. It. had. been l./.ng down, and was unhurt. It' also was turned loose and we got no milk from Bonnie the next 'day. The storm entered town, from the south-west corner, cut through in a curve around our house at the north edge, and then south-east across the college grounds - and out towards Malcom. There were about 80 people |