by Lynn Austin
“Would you like me to go there and retrieve them for you?” he asked.
“No, I need to go there with you and help.”
“But, Flora, darling, it’s much too dangerous for you—”
“Don’t coddle me, Edmund. It’s just as dangerous for you as it is for me. I would be in an agony of worry if I stayed here and let you go by yourself. Besides, I know where to find everything quickly, and I could gather them much faster than you could.”
“Well, you two aren’t having an adventure without me,” Rebecca said. “I’m going with you.”
They decided to walk after instructing Rufus and Andrew to prepare the carriage in case they needed to evacuate in a hurry. The heat and smoke intensified as they neared the city’s center. So did the throngs of desperate people cramming the streets, dragging trunks and suitcases and carrying bundles on their backs as they hurried to escape the approaching flames. Discarded items littered the streets, abandoned by people in their haste to flee. Showers of sparks and chunks of flaming debris filled the air, hurled by the hurricane-like winds.
“Look!” Becky shouted, pointing up. “The courthouse is on fire!” Flames were devouring the cupola of the building only a few blocks away. They leaped so high into the sky and were spreading so fast to the adjacent rooftops that Flora didn’t see how anything could stop them. The skyline to the west was a towering wall of fire.
“We need to hurry,” Edmund said, “before it spreads to your building.”
Flora’s hands shook as she fumbled with her key to unlock the main door. When it finally opened, they raced up the stairs to Father’s law and investment offices on the second floor, taking them two at a time. She was relieved to see that several of her father’s partners and associates were already there with the safe open, working to save their valuable records. The rooms were so bright from the light of the flames that they didn’t need a lamp. Edmund helped Flora stuff deeds and stock certificates into the rucksacks and canvas bags that he’d wisely thought to bring.
“Enough, Flora,” he said when they were full. “We need to get out.” They raced down the stairs and out of the building again, heading east toward the lake and home, the heat of the fire warming their backs.
By the time they reached their street, Flora felt weak with exhaustion. Edmund was pale with fatigue and wheezing from the smoke. “This fire is unbelievable,” Becky murmured. “I keep wondering if I’m dreaming.” They saw many of their neighbors hastily loading goods and children into carriages and onto wagons. Others had ripped up their carpets and soaked them with water, and were now spreading them on their rooftops to protect them from flying sparks.
“Do you think we should cover our roof, too, so the fire won’t catch?” Becky asked. She always had been fearless in the past, but Flora could tell that the eerie horror of this strange night had shaken her.
“I don’t see how we could manage it,” Edmund said. “We can’t climb all the way up to the roof, and we have no one to help us. Rufus and Griffin are too elderly, and I’m certainly not going to allow you ladies to do it. Besides, our house is so close to all the others that we couldn’t possibly stop the fire from spreading once it comes this way.”
“God help us,” Flora said.
Becky squeezed her hand. “He’s the only One who can.”
They went inside to gather their wits and try to decide what to do next. “I think we all need to leave and go someplace safe,” Edmund said. “The fire has already jumped to our side of the river and could spread this way next. I want everyone to get into the carriage so Rufus can take us north across the main branch of the Chicago River. Gather your most important possessions, and let’s go.”
Flora saw fear in her elderly servants’ eyes as they hurried to collect their things. Rufus had parked the carriage near the door, and he and Andrew began loading it. Flora drew Edmund aside, away from the others and said, “We won’t all fit, Edmund. That carriage is much too small. Let’s send Becky and the servants on their way first. Rufus or Andrew can return for us if there’s time. ”
“But I want you to be safe, darling Flora. You saw how quickly the fire is spreading through the city.”
“I can run fast, and they can’t—I’m a good thirty years younger than the Griffins and Maria Elena are. Besides, I need to make sure all these documents and your research papers make it out safely, and they’re going to take up a lot of space in the carriage.”
“Then let’s get everything loaded so Rebecca and the servants can leave.”
“I’m not going anywhere without you two,” Becky said. She stood in the doorway and had overheard Flora’s plan. “I can run just as fast as you, Flora. Probably faster. We’re in this together. All three of us.”
Edmund dragged their boxes and sacks outside and helped Rufus strap them to the back of the carriage. Flora had been right—the servants barely managed to squeeze into the carriage with all of their things. “Where shall we meet up?” Flora asked as Rufus prepared to leave.
“My sister works for a family up on LaSalle Street,” Mrs. Griffin suggested. Flora copied down the address and tucked it into her pocket.
“I sure don’t like leaving you folks behind,” Rufus said. He wore the same worried look that he’d had years ago when he’d left Flora and Becky at the uniform factory.
Flora reached up to the driver’s seat to squeeze his arm. “We’ll be fine, Rufus. Don’t worry. We have God and Edmund to watch out for us.” Rufus nodded and tipped his hat before driving away. Flora marveled at the commotion taking place on her normally tranquil street. Her neighbors and their servants were dragging expensive pieces of furniture and wardrobes filled with clothing through the streets toward the shore of Lake Michigan, then hurrying back for more. “Is there anything we should try to save?” she asked Becky as they watched the frantic activity.
“None of it matters. Let’s leave it all in the Lord’s hands.” The three of them returned inside, and as Flora gazed around the enormous drawing room filled with furniture and bronze statues and oil paintings, she knew Becky was right. It was useless to try to save all their possessions, no matter how valuable they were. Either their home would be spared—or it wouldn’t.
She turned to Edmund. “Thank goodness your books and artifact collections are in your office in Evanston. The fire won’t spread that far, will it?”
“Twelve miles? I don’t think so. But what about your Father’s library? Is there any way to save all those wonderful books?”
“We could bury some of them in the backyard for safekeeping,” Becky said. “There’s already a large hole out there where the gardener removed a dead bush the other day. I don’t think he planted the new one yet.”
They hauled an empty steamer trunk down from upstairs and Becky filled it with the best volumes from his collection. Flora went from room to room gathering a few of their most treasured mementos, including the tiny oil painting of their mother and a few pieces of her jewelry. Edmund laid a blanket on the dining room floor and piled the family silver in the middle of it and tied the bundle closed. He had to dig the hole a little deeper to fit everything in, including a box of the book they’d written, and he was sweating with the effort by the time he’d covered the hole with dirt again. They went inside to wash the ash and dirt off their hands.
“Now what?” Becky asked as they gazed around the disheveled rooms. The clock in the foyer struck three thirty as if in reply.
“It’s still the middle of the night,” Edmund said, “and look—it’s as light as day in here. We can’t wait for Rufus to come back. We need to get out.” His face was smudged with soot like a laborer’s, and a layer of ash had turned his hair gray. Flora went to him and held him tightly, knowing she would sooner lose the house and everything in it than lose him and Becky.
“You’re right. Let’s go.”
They stuffed their pockets and Edmund’s knapsack with all of the cash they had in the house. Becky added bread and apples and a few pieces o
f chicken from their celebration dinner. Then they walked out the door, hoping it wasn’t for the last time, and headed north toward the bridge that crossed the Chicago River, joining the tidal wave of fleeing people. “Rufus will never be able to make it back for us with the carriage even if he wanted to,” Flora said. The wind tore at their clothes and brought showers of flaming sparks down on them like rain. Some of the larger pieces burned through the fabric of Flora’s blouse and stung her arms and back like wasp bites. She removed her hat, fearing the straw would ignite and set her hair on fire, and the wind promptly snatched it from her hand. The smoke that blinded them and stung their eyes was so thick at times it threatened to suffocate them. A surge of panic pressed against Flora’s chest. They had waited too long to leave. The fire was about to overtake them. She gripped Edmund’s and Becky’s hands to keep from being separated in the running mob.
But a gang of rough-looking men who obviously didn’t belong in this well-to-do neighborhood was moving in the opposite direction. Flora saw looters running out of several homes with armloads of valuables. One man wore several layers of fine gentlemen’s clothing and carried a bundle of silk dresses. “Do you think they’ll loot our house, too?” she asked.
Becky squeezed her hand. “There’s nothing we can do.”
There were only so many bridges to the north side of the river, and the entire population of Chicago poured toward them. Panicked people clutching all sorts of belongings jammed the roadway, many of them dragging trunks and suitcases, pushing wheelbarrows, or driving wagons and carriages and carts of every shape and kind. Children screamed in terror, and their fear nearly broke Flora’s heart. She had longed for a baby these past five years, but as she saw the terrified little ones being carried and herded through the streets, she was grateful that she didn’t have a child to experience such danger and horror.
At last she saw the arches of the bridge up ahead in the fire-bright sky. But the crowd suddenly halted and the press of people pushed against her from all sides. She and Edmund and Becky struggled to hang on to each other. “What’s going on? Why have we stopped?” she asked. Then she heard the clanging, grinding gears of the swing bridge and saw the tips of several masts up ahead on the river. They were opening the bridge to let ships through, forcing all of these people to wait! After what seemed like a lifetime, the bridge swung closed again and the mob surged forward to cross it.
The fire was right behind them, gaining on them. Flora saw the wind-driven flames leap across the river to the west of them as they hurried over the bridge, and for the first time that night, she wondered if they would survive. Piles of belongings littered the road ahead, abandoned by their owners in their haste to flee. “I don’t think we can outrun this,” Edmund shouted above the melee. “We need to get to the lakeshore!” He dragged them by the hand toward the lake beneath a hailstorm of burning cinders. Flora had just spotted the black void of the water ahead of them when a flaming ball of canvas tumbled down the street behind them and ignited the hem of Becky’s dress. Edmund turned at the sound of her screams and tore a portion of her skirt free, stomping on it to extinguish the fire. “Are you all right?” he breathed.
“Yes. But we need to run!”
Thousands of people had reached the lake ahead of them—rich and poor, young and old, muttering in a babble of languages. Some wept, many prayed, but most huddled on the shore beside their bundles of belongings, gazing at the city in disbelief. “Look,” Becky said, pointing to the Great Central Depot. It lit up the night as it burned across the river.
At times the choking smoke became so bad they could barely breathe. The heat sent them wading into the chilly water, and as they stood with their arms wrapped around each other’s waists, Flora said, “I wonder if we’re going to die?”
“God knows when the hour of our end will be,” Becky said. “We don’t need to fear. . . . But I truly hope it isn’t tonight.” She and Flora looked at each other and began to laugh. It bubbled up from deep inside Flora, and she let go of her husband for a moment to cling tightly to her sister.
“This has been an adventure, hasn’t it, Becky?”
“One I wouldn’t have chosen—but, yes, it has.”
They waded out of the water again after a while and sat on the ground, shivering with all the other refugees. Edmund left them for a few minutes, and when he returned he looked worried. “I hate to say this, but we can’t stay here. Everything along these docks is going to burn—the brewery, all of that lumber, those warehouses and piles of coal. If the flames don’t kill us, the smoke will. We have to move farther north.”
Flora’s heart began to thump. “Back into the fire?”
“I think we can stay ahead of it if we zigzag through the streets. . . . Ready?”
They plunged back into the maelstrom to outrun the firestorm. Sometimes they saw it a mere half-block away, as if it were pursuing them, taunting them. Edmund had to pause several times, overcome by fits of coughing, and they sat down on the curb to rest. At dawn, with the fire behind them for now, they staggered into the cemetery near Lincoln Park. At least Flora thought it was dawn—the sky was so bright with flames it was difficult to tell. Thousands of people had reached the safety of the cemetery ahead of them, and it was a scene of despair and desolation. Where would all these people live? How would they survive in the coming days once the fire’s fury spent itself? If it ever did.
The three of them sank down on one of the graves, leaning against the tombstones, and ate the food that Becky had packed earlier that night, grateful for it. Flora longed for a drink of water, her mouth and throat parched and dry, but there was none. Weary with fatigue and sorrow, she closed her eyes and dozed.
When she woke again, clouds of black smoke swirled over the city, which was still in flames. “As if one night of this hell on earth wasn’t enough,” she heard Edmund telling Becky, “it seems we’re in for more. The fire shows no signs of dying out.”
“Do you think we’ll be safe here?”
“I don’t know. For now, maybe. But I’m worried about our servants. The fire is burning a path straight north through that part of the city. Will you take care of Flora for me while I try to find them and warn them to leave?”
Flora sat up straight, every part of her body aching. “Nothing doing! We all go or none of us does.”
They set off again, weaving west toward LaSalle Street, the roads still crowded with fleeing people. How many thousands would be homeless when this nightmare ended? Would she and Edmund and Becky be homeless, too? As they neared LaSalle, Flora thought the neighborhood looked familiar, then she realized that Mrs. Worthington lived nearby. Flora had tried to remain friends with her for Father’s sake after ending her engagement to Thomas, but the widow had turned her away.
“Edmund, wait,” she said as he started to turn north on LaSalle. “Can we go down one more block to Wells Street? Mrs. Worthington lives on Wells, and I want to make sure she’s safe. She doesn’t have any children, so she may need help. Do you mind, Becky?”
“No, I don’t mind. But we’ll need to be quick. The fire is right behind us, and we haven’t found our servants yet.”
The scene on the widow’s street was the same as the others they had witnessed on this endless night and day—people loading household goods into carts and wagons, cramming into the homes of friends and strangers as they waited for the danger to end, wondering if they’d have to flee again. Flora halted in front of the stately Georgian-style home Mrs. Worthington had bought with the inheritance Father had left her. “I’ll wait out here,” Becky said. “I don’t think she will approve of my attire.” She gestured to her half-torn skirt and bare leg, visible through the charred edges. Flora grinned at the sight, then walked with Edmund through the widow’s wide-open front door and found her in the middle of a chaotic mess. Half-packed boxes lay strewn in every room as if she was trying to move the home’s entire contents. The widow herself looked wild-eyed, her hair in disarray, her cheeks hectic with feverish c
olor. “Flora, the gaslights all went out!” she said without greeting. “And now it seems the water is off, too.”
“That’s because the gasworks and water pumping station are on fire. The flames are coming this way, Mrs. Worthington. You need to get out.”
“I’m waiting for my driver. I sent him to my cousin’s house with the first load of goods, and he hasn’t returned. The rest of my servants got tired of waiting for him and the cowards all abandoned me.”
“I doubt if your driver can make it back,” Flora told her. “The roads are filled with people and wagons all moving in the opposite direction. You’d be wise to leave everything and get out while you can.”
“Leave a lifetime of memorabilia? My dear, how can I? Besides, I can’t get anywhere without a carriage. I’m quite unaccustomed to walking.”
“Would you like me to see if I can secure a place for you on someone’s wagon?” Edmund offered. “In this wild time, people will do anything if the price is right.”
“Don’t you have a carriage?” she asked.
“No, ma’am, we—”
“You forced your wife to walk all this way?” Flora saw disdain for Edmund in her expression and heard it in her voice. “You live miles from here!”
Flora felt every one of those miles in her aching feet and weary body. “He isn’t making me walk, Mrs. Worthington. We sent our servants off to safety in our carriage last night. We’re on our way now to meet them. Please come with us.”
“I am not leaving my home and all my things.” She placed the silver teapot she’d been holding into one of the open boxes.
“Can’t you smell the smoke, Mrs. Worthington?” Flora asked. The widow didn’t reply. Flora tried one last time. “Please, Mrs. Worthington. I know how much my father cared for you, and I don’t want to leave you here. Come with us, for his sake. Please.”
“No, thank you. The ties between our families were severed years ago when you married him.” She lifted her chin as she nodded at Edmund—wonderful, brave, exhausted Edmund who would risk his life to save her and Becky. “Good day,” Mrs. Worthington added curtly.