e. A doctor's wife who had been in the
Mt. Vernon cyclone, and a newspaper man who had visited the South Carolina
islands after the tidal wave, and Charleston after the earthquake, piled
up their accounts of those scenes of suffering, some of them even greater
than the horrors of war, so that Lloyd could not sleep that night, for
thinking of them.

"Betty," she whispered, across the stateroom, turning over in her berth.
"Betty, are you awake?"

"Yes. Do you want anything?"

"I can't sleep. That's all. Every time I shut my eyes I see all those
awful things they told about: cities in ruins, and dead people lying
around in piles, and the yellow fevah camps, and floods and fiah. It is a
dreadful world, Betty. No one knows what awful thing is goin' to happen
next."

"Don't think about the dreadful part," urged Betty. "Think of the funny
things Mrs. Brown told, of the time the levee broke at Shawneetown. The
table all set for supper, and the water pouring in until the table floated
up to the ceiling, and went bobbing around like a fish."

"That doesn't help any," said Lloyd, after a moment. "I see the watah
crawlin' highah and highah up the walls, above the piano and pictuahs,
till I feel as if it is crawlin' aftah me, and will be all ovah the bed in
a minute. Did you evah think how solemn it is, Betty Lewis, to be away out
in the middle of the ocean, with nothing but a few planks between us and
drownin'? Seems to me the ship pitches around moah than usual, to-night,
and the engine makes a mighty strange, creakin' noise."

"Do you remember the night I put you to sleep at the Cuckoo's Nest?" asked
Betty. "The night after you fell down the barn stairs, playing
barley-bright? Shut your eyes and let me try it again."

It was no nursery legend or border ballad that Betty crooned this time,
but some peaceful lines of the old Quaker poet, and the quiet comfort of
them stole into Lloyd's throbbing brain and soothed her excited fancy.
Long after Betty was asleep she went on repeating to herself the last
lines:

"I know not where His islands lift
Their fronded palms in air,
I only know I cannot drift
Beyond His love and care."

She did dream of fires and floods that night, but the horror of the scenes
was less, because a baby voice called cheerfully through them, "Here,
daddy, give these to the poor little boys that are cold and homesick?" and
a great St. Bernard, with a Red Cross on his back, ran around