Treasure and Trouble Therewith by Geraldine Bonner (top e book reader .txt) 📕

why her face held its ashen pallor, her eyes their hunted fear. But there was no relief to be found at the phone--a dead stillness, not even the whispering hum of the wires met her ear. "It's broken," she said to herself. "Or the girls have got frightened and gone."

Out on the lawn she paused a moment beside Aunt Ellen.

"Something's the matter with the wires. I'm going to the drugstore on Sutter Street."

"But what for--what for?" Aunt Ellen wanted to know. "Telephoning when the city's been smitten by the hand of God!"

"It's Chrystie," she called over her shoulder as she went out of the gate. "I want to find out how she is."

"Chrystie's at San Mateo," Aunt Ellen quavered. "She's all right there. She's with the Barlows."

The man in the doorway of his wrecked drugstore laughed sardonically at her request to use the phone. All the wires were broken--you couldn't telephone any more than you could fly. Everything was out of commission. You couldn't telegraph--you couldn't get a message carried--except by hand--not if you were the president of the country. Even the car lines were stopped--not a spark of power. The whole machinery of the city was at a standstill. "Like the clock there," he said, and pointed to the face of the timepiece hanging shattered from the wall, its hands marking a quarter to five.

She went back, jostling through the people. Bold ones were going into the houses to put on their clothes, timid ones commissioning them to throw theirs out of the windows. She saw Chinese servants, unshaken from their routine, methodically clearing fallen bricks and cornices from front steps to which they purported, giving the matutinal sweeping. She skirted a fallen stone terrace, its copings strewn afar, the garden above a landslide across the pavement. People spoke to her, some she knew, others who were strangers. She hardly answered them, hurrying on. Dazed, poor girl, they said, and small wonder.

If Chrystie was in the city she would certainly come home. It was the natural, the only, thing for her to do. But it would be impossible to sit there waiting for her, doing nothing. The best course for Lorry was to go out and look for her--go to all those places where she might be. Aunt Ellen would be at the house, waiting, if she came, to tell her they were all right. And Lorry would return at intervals to see if she had come. If by midday she hadn't, then there was Mark Burrage. She would go to him. But Chrystie would be back before then--she might be there even now.

Her rapid walk broke into a run and presently she was flying past the garden fence, sending her glance ahead under the trees. No--Aunt Ellen was alone, looking as if she was participating in a solitary picnic. In front of her stood a small table covered with a white cloth and set with glass and silver. She was inspecting it closely as if trying to find flaws in its arrangement and as Lorry came panting up the steps, said with a relieved air:

"Oh, there you are! Fong's brought out breakfast. He says the kitchen's a wreck and he had to make the coffee on an alcohol lamp. The range is all broken and there's something the matter with the gas in the gas stove. Did you get the Barlows?"

Lorry sank down on the other chair.

"No. the telephone isn't working. We can't get any word to anyone."

"She'll be all right," said Aunt Ellen, lifting the silver coffee pot. "San Mateo's a long way off."

It was an unfortunate moment for a heavy shock to send its rocking vibrations along the ground. Aunt Ellen collapsed against the chair back, the coffee pot swaying from her limp grasp. Lorry snatched it and Aunt Ellen's hands, liberated, clutched the corners of the table like talons.

"Oh, God have mercy! God have mercy!" she groaned. "If this doesn't stop I'll die."

Fong came running round the corner of the house.

"Be care, be care, Missy Ellen," he cried warningly. "You keep hold on him coffee pot. I not got much alcohol." He saw the treasure in Lorry's hand and was calmed. "Oh, all 'ight! Miss Lolly got him. You dlink him up, Miss Lolly. He make you good nerve."

But Lorry could not drink much. It seemed to Aunt Ellen she hardly touched the cup to her lips when she was up and moving toward the house again--this time for her hat.

"Hat!" muttered the old lady, picking at a bunch of grapes. "The girl's gone mad. Wanting a hat in the middle of an earthquake."

Then her attention was attracted by a man stopping at the gate and bidding her good-morning. He was the fishman from Polk Street, extremely excited, his greeting followed by a voluble description of how he had escaped from a collapsing building in his undershirt. Aunt Ellen swapped experiences with him, and pointed to the chimney, which if it had fallen inward would have killed her. The fishman was not particularly interested in that and went on to tell how he had been down to Union Square and seen thousands of people there--and had she heard that fires had started in the Mission--a good many fires? Lorry, emerging from the house, drew near and said, as she had said to Fong:

"But there's no danger of fires getting any headway. You can't beat our firemen in the country."

The fishman, moving to go, looked dubious.

"Yes, we got a grand department, no one denies that. But the Mission's mostly wood and there's quite some wind. It looks pretty serious to me."

He passed on and Lorry went to the gate.

"Where are you going _now_?"' Aunt Ellen cried.

"Out," said Lorry, clicking up the hasp. "I want to see what's going on. I'll be back in an hour or two. If Chrystie comes, stay here with her-right here on this spot."

Afterward Lorry said she thought she walked twenty miles that day. Her first point of call was Crowley's livery stable where she asked for a carriage. There were only two men in the place; one, owl-eyed and speechless, in what appeared to be a state of drunken stupefaction, waved her to the other, who, putting a horse into the shafts of a cart, shook his head. He couldn't give her a carriage for love or money. Every vehicle in the place was already gone--the rich customers had grabbed them all, some come right in and taken them, others bought them outright. He swung his hand to the empty depths of the building; not an animal left but the one he had and he was taking it to go after his wife and children; they were down in the Mission and the Mission was on fire. He had the animal harnessed and was climbing to the seat as Lorry left the stable.

After that she gave up all hope of getting a carriage and started to walk. She went to every house in that part of the city where Chrystie had friends, and in none of them found trace or word of her sister. She saw people so stunned that they could hardly remember who Chrystie was, others who treated the catastrophe lightly--not any worse than the quake of '68, nothing to make a fuss about--a good shake-up, that was all. She found families sitting down to cold breakfasts, last night's coffee heated on the flicker of gas left in the pipes; others gathered in pallid groups on the doorsteps, afraid to go into the house, undaunted Chinamen bringing down their clothes.

As she moved her ears were greeted with a growing narrative of disaster. There had been great loss of life in the poorer sections; the injured were being taken to the Mechanics' Pavilion; the Mission was on fire and the wind was with it. In this, the residential part, there was no water. Thrifty housekeepers were filling their bathtubs with the little dribble that came from the faucets, and cautioning those who adhered to the habits of every day to forego the morning wash. It was not till she was near home again that, meeting a man she knew, she learned the full measure of ill-tidings. The mains had been torn to pieces, there was no water in San Francisco, and the fire, with a strong wind behind it, was eating its way across the Mission, triumphant and unchecked.

It gave her pause for a wide-seeing, aghast moment, then her eye caught the roof of her home and she forgot--Chrystie might be there, ought to be there, _must_ be there. She broke into a run, sending that questing glance ahead to the green sweep of the lawn. It met, as it had done before, the figure of Aunt Ellen in front of the little table, the empty chair at her side. Even then she did not give up hope. Chrystie might be in the house; all Aunt Ellen's pleadings could not restrain her if it suited her purpose to dare a danger.

Before she reached the gate she called, hoarse and breathless.

"Is Chrystie there?"

Aunt Ellen started and looked at her.

"Oh, dear, here you are at last! I've been in such a state about you. No, of course Chrystie's not here. I knew she wouldn't be. They say all the trains are stopped--the rails are twisted. How could she get back?"

Lorry dropped on to the steps. She did not know till then how much she had hoped. Her head fell forward in the hollow of her chest, her hands clenched together in her lap. Aunt Ellen addressed the nape of her neck:

"I don't know what's going to happen to us. I've just sat here all morning and heard one awful thing after another. Do you know that the whole Mission's burning and there's not a drop of water to put it out with? And if it crosses Market Street this side of the city'll burn too."

Lorry did not answer and she went on:

"The people are coming out of there by hundreds. A man told me--no, it was a woman. I didn't know her from Adam, but she hung over the gate like an old friend and talked and talked. They're coming out like rats; soldiers are poking them out with bayonets. All the soldiers are down there from the Presidio and Black Point. And lots of people are killed--the houses fell on them and caught them. It was a man told me that. He'd been down there and he was all black with smoke. I thought it was the end of the world and it might just as well have been. Thank goodness your father and mother aren't here to see it. And, _thank God_, Chrystie's safe in San Mateo!"

Lorry raised her head in intolerable pain.

"_Don't_, Aunt Ellen!" she groaned, and got up from the step.

The old lady, seeing her face, cast aside the eiderdown, and rose in tottering consternation.

"Oh, Lorry dear, you're faint. It's too much for you. Let's get a carriage and go--somewhere, anywhere, away from here."

Lorry pushed away her helpless, shaking hands.

"I'm all right, I'm all right," she said. "Sit down, Aunt Ellen. Leave me alone. I'm tired, I've walked a long way, that's all."

Aunt Ellen could only drop back, feebly protesting, into her chair. If Lorry wanted to walk herself to death _she_ couldn't stop her--nobody minded what she said anyway. She sat hunched up in her wraps, murmurously grumbling, and when Fong brought out lunch on a tray,