<TITLE>24. Par 90-93</TITLE>L-90  But she taken pneumonia when she went to get the children a Christmas present. And the doctor said she'll have to lay right here, Billy, 'cause she's--probably will die if--if she ever moves. But her mother come up and said she was going to move her down to her house. And Dr. Adair said, "She'll have to get another doctor, 'cause I wouldn't do it, Billy," wouldn't permit it.
So they--she went and dismissed him and got another doctor and taken her down there. And the flood broke through, and then all of us was put on the rescue to--to work with the flood. We rushed her out to the government hospital where they temporary placed the hospital. The dikes was breaking through; the city was washing away.

L-91  I'll never forget those nights. I remember they called me. Both babies was sick with pneumonia, and she was laying sick with pneumonia, out in the hospital there with a fever a hundred and five and both babies sick.
And I come up... I come up and had my car, and I had a boat and I was raised on the river and said... I operated a boat pretty well. And everybody was just pulling people out of the flood, and people drowning and everything. I got my boat... I was working on a wall and some of them come, said, "Oh, the--get down here, preacher, right quick and get your boat in down here." The dike broke, you know, over on Chestnut Street, and the houses are washed away, and there's a mother on top of the house out there with a bunch of little children, about eleven o'clock at night.

L-92  I rushed down there real quick and throwed my boat in the water, started it up. And I had to buck those waves as high as this tent, almost, up in there where they just a dashing against the side of those buildings like that. And I heard a mother screaming. I looked over there, and she was standing on the top porch, out over her house, and the--the waves just shaking that house like that with four or five little children standing around her. I said, "See where the street lights hadn't went out yet, down through there." And I went up through the alley like this with the boat and it just washing things from under it. Went down through that way. Finally caught to the post and throwed the rope around and run in, the mother fainted. And I picked her up and pulled all the children, packed them, put them in the boat and got back.

L-93  Just as I got to the bank I heard her say, "Oh, my baby, my baby..." Well, I thought she'd left a little baby in there. "Where's my baby?" though she was talking about a little--a little about three year old child she had there.
And I said, "Oh, my, a little baby laying in that house..." And I went back again, and I knowed the poor little thing, how I love children. And the waves were horrible then. I just got to the house, and throwed the rope around again, and went in, looked at all around, and I couldn't find no baby, and just then I heard the house give away. And just as it give away I run real quick to the porch and grabbed the--the rope at the column, went down and pulled the slip knot out of it, and then the current caught me and out to the river I went, like that.


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