Plentywood herald. [volume] (Plentywood, Mont.) 1908-current, 1929-05-02
By
William Dudley Peney

lapse any instant. Cody. calmly. with
out hysterla-else she would have bum
gled her laborS-a soul %undaunted was
sticking to her post of duty while every
call meant the saving of lives.
If the wires remained openl
That she vas keeping them open was
a thought that came later. No trace
of her mothers blood in her now. No
streak OF yellow. No such exhibition
ism as her sisters showed for gain. Up
in a severely plain room of imminent
death, with her head microphones n
tiara of glory, wires from the fraupht
apertures before her going out across
black miles-through rain and mael-
Strom and Observation-Disclosures hum
bic farm homes where men and women
and little children were sleeping un-
conscious of the juggernaut speeding
toward them, the youngest Taylor girl
was putting strong men TO shame that
night.
Heroism thisl-the width and the
depth OF l~ti-sacrifice unutterable-the
most beautiful thing in the world!
| cannot put on this page the ice at
my heart when that yellow blotch
rocked and flickered out. What must
have been Babs Taylor's thoughts in
those moments. If she had time to
think at all? We know now that she
reached every subscriber on that val
ley circuit before the undermined struc-
ture collapsed. And in the moment
that it vanished. four men were re-
CURED to hold Charley Fisk. Crazed
by the plight of the child whom he
loved, he was battling them 10 escape
and leap in the current. The idea OBJ
sessed him that he could swim it and
rescue her single handed.
His wife, wherever she was in that
milling mob, was not so fortunate in
being held from suicide.
The Taylor girls mothers got loose
and jumped" a wall came shrilly above
the frightful booming.
The floods in Vermont are known
to the nation.
The press wires reported Bah Taylor's
heroism from Maine to California.
Sam figured it out later that 3y7 per-
sons, counting women and children.
owed their lives that night to what
Barbara did. Her body, tangled in
wreckage along with that of her moth
the lineman who had fallen off
the cable, and eight other Barstow
residents were recovered six miles down
the Green river the following after
noon.
But there are features of that story
which the wires did not carry. One of
them concerned a despectacled, flat
footed small town barber who twenty
seven years bygone had smashed the
romance Of his life SO that little Babs
wouldn't have to go to YER
l like to think that the God of
Things as They Are looked forward
a quarter of a century, saw that
BarstoW flood night, cast Barbara Tay-
Tor for her role in that cataclysm. To
bring her to her supreme hour, how
ever, some one had to provide her with
food, shelter, clothes-meet her girl
mood bills-help her to blossom into the
yomanhOOd beautiful that came to the
in that blooming black night.
OF course, ONE other girl might
nave been phone operator in Barstow
hat epochal evening and stuck to her
in similar sacrifice. Telephone
girls in such dilemmas do not seem
bred Of a strain to become WeaklingS
n such moments. But the fact re-
mains that if little Charley Fisk hadn't
lone his part, endured tWenty-seven
ears of Golgotha wearing out the
loor around a red seated chair, the
would always have remained in
AOQOt. 1dOo d1OoC w llCl dlllCUllySt
moment because her foster father had
irst gone through 14,191 200 moments
consistently colored a bleak leaden
ray.
Life is funny, funny.
I'm told Charley Fisk was seen at
he Olympic movie last Saturday night
or the first time since wife and daugh-
err were buried. Coming out, he en-
.ountered Eva Bede.
Uncle Joe Fodder says they walked
lp East Main street together. It's the
irst time that's happened since Arson
TaylOr'S removal.
We're hoping they'll marry. Eva's
along in years, her methods of
are getting out of date, and
she's almost as much the he
oine of Charley Fisk's story as Babs.
We doubt If her lovers occupation
viii cut much figure-deterring her
low.
And yet BARRIERS are SO or
Copyright: 1928: by William Dudley Pelley)
VIII ~ Nxo a. - J~.,Lk - L. - xy--.-