The Birmingham age-herald., 1907-03-29

going face foremost and not making very fortunate landing, All this time Upton Sinclair was creaming to us 10 hurry-to jump quick-to remember there were others to be saved.
 "Katherine simply said To me over and over, Mamma, they haven't come under with the blanket yet. They haven't come yet She never asked me not to drop her, or showed the slightest fear, nor even. one would say. excitement.
 Lets Katherine Drop.
 As soon as they came under I did let her down, and had to wait to see that she was on her feet before l could climb out myself. I let my self down until 1 hung by my hands 10 the window sill, and then l dropped. 1 pretty well knew what fate 1 was going to. for Miss MacGowan was already screaming on the ground be- low me. The blanket may have broken my fall to some extent, but 1t was held very low. and Miss Summers tells me that my weight dragged it instantly from her hands, l lay on it for a minute looking up at the red windows of the house above me. sensing the awful agony of the blow, and then cinders began to fall on us so thick that everybody cried out that must be moved.
 "When they picked me up I screamed, and then I was knocked silent from that
 
 could be strengthened. The spine is in jured, you see, and the bending of it was such exquisite torture as l should never with any human being to undergo. begged them to carry me by my hands and feet, but they semed to find a blanket better-and no doubt it was. Probably 1 couldn't have stood the other as well.
 Katherine stayed by me and ran along in the snow in her little bare feet, not crying out word, but evidently terribly distressed because l screamed so. Near | the road they laid me down, and some body said Here's a mattress Put her on that.
 Tt was q great relief They couldn't bend the mattress so much in carrying it and besides they finally agreed to my en- treaties and dragged it over the ground "I felt it very hot under me, but said nothing, though l felt sure the bedding was on fire. l didn't really care. Now and then some of them would bend over me and one of them said:
 The Bed on Fire.
 "'Why the beds one hre-Mrs. Cooke will burn up,' and they took wet snow and put out the fire They told me who had been saved as We went down that awful journey and 1 was good deal comforted to find that nearly every one got out. most of them with less hurt than ourselves Where lheIe Was dll lnJuIy dl dll' Miss MacGowna was taken first in the ambulance and brought here to the EngleWood hospital. ana l followed as soon as the vehicle got back; but mean- time they had carried me into the house of some very kind people for whose sake locked my teeth pretty hard over the cries. and managed somehow to speak to all who came about to help me
 We have been in the hospital a week ! now and have both improved rapidly, more rapidly than the nature of our in- jures would have led any one to believe Yet there is a weary way ahead of the two of us until we are as well hs We were a week ago. Meantime the fire made clean sweep of the accumulated literary material of fifteen or twenty years. You know how systematically we work, and everything was in even better order than when we were in Chattanooga. I was tabulating and getting into the smallest form my materials, so that We might travel more easily and in doing so l had worked up a good deal and diposed of good deal, so that the matter was in splendid shape. l suppose ten or fifteen thousand dollars would be a conservative estimate Of what we lost. Hank Pear sail (Miss MacGowan's novel; was among the things, and of course n successful novel often makes that amount or more. Against this you must offset that Miss MacGown can rewrite the story, and that she may do it better when she does it over.
 "There were, l suppose. half a dozen book manuscripts altogether. some of which Wil lbe reproduced and some prob ably not. The collection of material for short stories was very full. and it may be used to some extent. You know it was our custom to have the scenario of a story planned and laid out and I gen. orally had from fifty to a hundred of