<TITLE>29. Par 111-114</TITLE>L-111 And then I tried to find Hope. I couldn't find her. Some of them said, "No, there was no one drowned in that group." Said, "They all got on a train, and went out to Charlestown." Well, I jumped in my car and started to Charlestown, when I did that creek back there had cut off about five miles of solid water down through there. Some of them said, "No," said, "the train got half-way out there and was washed off the trestles out there. They all drowned out there off of that trestle." They went out on a cattle car.
My wife, her father, one of the heads down there on the railroad, and [Blank.spot.on.tape--Ed.] his daughter with double pneumonia and two babies with pneumonia laying in the cattle car. And the sleet and rain a blowing on the road to somewhere, and washed out in the water.

L-112 I tell you, brother, there's a whole lot. When God calls you to do anything, don't you let no one stand in your way. You keep God first.
And I tried to find... I couldn't get a way, got my speed boat, and tried to get out into... towards Charlestown. I couldn't even touch the waters, the whirl would swing me plumb back. And I thought I was a pretty good boatman. And I tried it after times; it was almost breaking day, no success at all there. It was gone.
Then I was in a room, then found myself on a little island sitting out there. For three or four days I set alone there where they had to drop me something to eat. I had a long time to think over whether that was a bunch of trash or not, whether to mind some woman, or to mind what God said. No matter who it was, you listen to what God's got to say.

L-113 There, after while, after I got across the waters, it dropped enough, I went to see where my wife was. They told me she was in Charlestown. Got there, she wasn't there. And old Colonel Hay just went to glory recently, he put his arm around me, said, "Let's go down to the railroad station." When I went down there, broken-hearted, crying, I didn't know what to do. Oh, my, I thought, "Babies are probably laying, drifted off yonder somewhere in some brush pile. The wife may be laying down there, also." Oh, how I cried, and begged, and repented, and told God.
Look, friends. I believe if I'd have went on right then, where I was mixing up with that bunch of people who believed in the supernatural, the Angel of God would've come to me and revealed that thing, and it would've been thousands times thousands of more people in glory because of it. See, that's the reason I go day and night, and never worry, putting my whole strength, 'cause I've got to redeem the time; I've got to do it.

L-114 And so when I... Finally someone come and got me, said, "No, they're not drowned, Billy, I know where they are at. They're in Columbus, Indiana in the Baptist church." And I... They taken me up there, and I run down through that hall that night, screaming to the top of my voice. I didn't care who heard me, "Hope, Hope, where are you, honey?" Way down through there...
And all the refugees back there on little old cots and blankets, hanging up. And I happened to look way down there at the end, and I seen a bony hand holding up like that. I rushed real quick, pair of boots on, fell down there, and throwed my hat off, looked down there, and there laid my sweetheart, dying. Her hand moving up, her jaw sunk back, about three weeks or more before I'd found her. Her eyes were way back.


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