ul catastrophe had overtaken their
neighbors.

"Stay with Arthur and your mother," Vinnie said to Lill; "_I_ may do
something to help." And away she sped.

'Lecty Ann, met by Mrs. Betterson at the gate, was now able to tell more
of her story; and so strange, so tragical it seemed, that Caroline
forgot all about her ill health, the baby in her arms, and Cecie left
alone in the house, and brought up the rear of the little
procession,--Lill and 'Lecty Ann and Chokie preceding her down the road.

They had not gone far, when Lion came out of the woods, with downcast
ears and tail, ashamed of his recent cowardly conduct. And so,
accompanied by the dog and the children,--Lill lugging the baby at
last,--Caroline approached the scene of the disaster.

The whole force of the tornado seemed to have fallen upon Peakslow's
buildings. The stable was unroofed, and the barn had lost a door.

The house had fared still worse: it was--even as 'Lecty Ann had
said--almost literally "blowed down."

It had consisted of two parts,--a pretty substantial log-cabin, which
dated back to the earliest days of the settlement, and a framed
addition, called a lean-to, or "linter." The roof of the old part had
been lifted, and tumbled, with some of the upper logs, a mass of ruins,
over upon the linter, which had been crushed to the ground by the
weight.

Mrs. Peakslow and the girls and younger children were in the log-house
at the time; and, marvellous as it seemed, all had escaped serious
injury.

The boys were in the field with their father, and had run a race with
the tornado. The tornado beat. Dud was knocked down within a few rods of
the house. Zeph was blown up on a stack of hay, and lodged there; the
stack itself--and this was one of the curious freaks of the
whirlwind--being uninjured, except that it was canted over a little, and
ruffled a good deal, as if its feathers had been stroked the wrong way.

Mr. Peakslow was ahead of the boys; and they thought he must have
reached the linter.

Zeph, slipping down from his perch in the haystack, as soon as the storm
had passed, and seeing the house in ruins, and his mother and sisters
struggling to get out, had run screaming for help down the road toward
Mr. Wiggett's. Dud remained; and by pushing from without, while the
imprisoned family lifted and pulled from within, helped to move a log
which had fallen down against the closed door, and so aided the escape
from the house.

'Lecty Ann r