been possible. He said he would have deserted his quarters had he dared go out. This fairly stated the predicament of all. They were frightened where they were but feared to venture out.
It is wonderful what a difference the light of day makes in one's feeling of security. It is improbable that any one slept through that horrific night, except children. Our Bobby slept, though drenched. Everybody waited for the dawn, and when it came there came with it a feeling of relief, though the most severe part of the hurricane was after 7 o'clock Saturday morning. It was like parts I and II of a grand opera program. Wagner probably gained some of his inspirations from a hurricane. Surely there was weird music in the rhythm of the storm. It was grand opera of the grandest and most awful character. At the height of its fury I played the Victrola to keep the children quiescent, but the instrument could hardly be heard above the din of the wind. Bobby prompted me when at the conclusion of a record I failed to change it. The child was more composed than I.
Going back into the back room shortly after my first visit, I found it leaking like a sieve. The water was pouring in upon the floor and beds. I woke Felix, our eldest child, who was sleeping soundly, and got him up, and rescued the two little girls, Mary and Jeanne. The water was streaming in upon them, and I took both in my arms into the living room. My wife had moved Baby Elise in her basket into the northwest corner of the living room and Catherine had come in from her room, bringing our third son, Millard, with her. Here, between the fireplace and an old-fashioned davenport, the little flock hovered as the wind charged and roared and made the night hideous.
Our house is of concrete and stucco construction, having been built by a North Carolina physician as a winter home for his family. I found comfort in this reflection, for the storm was developing such fury that I began to realize it would be fatal to the cheap and carelessly constructed houses that had gone up during the boom period. Later, when the wind shifted and the house began to quiver and the ceiling to undulate in billows as a bedspread does when shaken by an energetic housekeeper, I realized that even the strongest construction was being subjected to a severe test. In the meantime dawn had broken and I attempted to open the kitchen door upon the back porch to reach the refrigerator. The children were fretting from hunger. Several times I threw my whole weight and strength against the door but could not budge it, so strong was the force of the gale against it. Eventually there was a lull and I got the door open, but wreckage blocked the passage from the kitchen to ice box. The entire screen
