Part 5 (1/2)

”North Americans! May the Lord grant you a peaceful and long life and prosperity to your land, and may your fields be filled with abundant harvest--Christ is risen. Your mercifulness gives us a helping hand.

Through your charity you have satisfied the starving. And for your magnificent alms accept from me this humble gift, which I send to the entire American people for your great beneficence, from all the hearts of the poor filled with feelings of joy.”

In the grat.i.tude manifested by the Russian Government and people we were glad to feel that a slight return had been made to Russia for past favors in our own peril, and a friends.h.i.+p never broken.

The Department of State at Was.h.i.+ngton, under date of January 11, 1894, forwarded the following:

”I have to inform you that on November 7, 1893, the American Minister at St. Petersburg received from the n.o.bility of that city, through their Marshal, Count Alexis Bobrinskoy, an address to the people of the United States. This address, which is in the English language, embodies in terms fitly chosen the thanks of the Russian people to the American for the aid sent to their country from our own during the famine period of the past two years. It is beautifully engrossed and its illumination embraces water-color drawings which render it a most attractive work of art.

”The doc.u.ment, which is superbly bound and enclosed in a fine case, was duly forwarded to this city by the American Minister at St. Petersburg, and will be given a conspicuous place in the library of this department.”

In so general an uprising of relief no great sum in contributions could be expected from any one source. The Red Cross felt that, if no more, it was glad to be able to pay, by the generous help of the city of Was.h.i.+ngton, the charter of a s.h.i.+p that conveyed its corn--$12,500--besides several thousands distributed in Russia through Tolstoi and American agents there.

We paid the cost of loading, superintended by Mr. Tillinghast in person, whose financial record shows the exact cost of transportation. All this was done in connection with the State of Iowa. Our home record showed, when all was finished, a field closed with a small balance in our favor, which we had no active call for. By the advice of one of the best personal advisers, bankers, and friends that the Red Cross has ever had, this small sum was placed in bank, in readiness for the next call.

VI

THE SEA ISLAND RELIEF

This little timely provision, advisedly made, was none too much or none too soon.

On the 28th of August, 1893, a hurricane and tidal wave from the direction of the West Indies swept the coast of South Carolina, covering its entire range of Port Royal Islands, sixteen feet below the sea.

These islands had thirty-five thousand inhabitants, mainly negroes. At first, it was thought that all must have perished. Later, it was found that only some four or five thousand had been drowned, and that thirty thousand remained with no earthly possession of home, clothing, or food.

The few boats not swept away took them over to the mainland in thousands, and calls went out for help. In this emergency Governor Tillman called for the services of the Red Cross, and my note-book has this pa.s.sage:

”The next night, in a dark, cheerless September mist, I closed my door behind me for ten months, and with three a.s.sistants went to the station to meet Senator Butler.”

At Columbia we were joined by Governor Tillman, and thus reinforced proceeded to Beaufort. After due examination the work which had been officially placed with us by the Governor was accepted October 1st, and carried on until the following July.

The submerged lands were drained, three hundred miles of ditches made, a million feet of lumber purchased and houses built, fields and gardens planted with the best seed in the United States, and the work all done by the people themselves. The thousands of boxes of clothing received were distributed among them, and we left them in July, 1894, supplies of vegetables for the city of Beaufort.

Free transportation for supplies continued till about March. No provisions in kind were sent from any source after the first four weeks of public excitement. After this all foodstuffs were purchased in Charleston and distributed as rations. Men were compelled to work on the building of their own homes in order to receive rations.

We found them an industrious, grateful cla.s.s of people, far above the ordinary grade usually met. They largely owned their little homes, and appreciated instruction in the way of improving them. The tender memory of the childlike confidence and obedience of this ebony-faced population is something that time cannot efface from either us or them.

On the third day after our arrival at Beaufort four middle-aged colored men came to the door of the room we had appropriated as an office, and respectfully asked to see ”Miss Clare.” They were admitted, and I waited to learn what request they would probably make of me. At length the tallest and evidently the leader, said:

”Miss Clare, we knows you doesn't remember us. But we never fo'gits you.

We has all of us got somethin' to show you.”

Slipping up a soiled, ragged s.h.i.+rtsleeve, he showed me an ugly scar above the elbow, reaching to the shoulder. ”Wagner?” I asked.

”Yes, Miss Clare, and you drissed it for me that night, when I crawled down the beach--'cause my leg was broke too,” he replied. ”And we was all of us there, and you took care of us all and drissed our wounz. I was with Colonel Shaw, and crawled out of the fote. The oth's nevah got in. But we all got to you, Miss Clare. And now you's got to us. We's talked about you a heap o' times, but we nevah 'spected to see you. We's nevah fo'git it, Miss Clare.”

One by one they showed their scars. There was very little clothing to hide them--bullet wound and sabre stroke. The memory, dark and sad, stood out before us all. It was a moment not to be forgotten.

Our purchases consisted of meat, mainly dry sides of pork, and grits, or hominy, for eating. For planting, beside the seed contributed and the nine hundred bushels of Irish potatoes, were eighteen hundred bushels of Northern Flint seed corn.