I was surrounded by twelve or fifteen roaring, surging, muddy feet of it. Thinking that perhaps you people might like to know how we passed the night of November third, and succeeding days, on this side of Montpelier's Main Street, I am writing this account of our fight with the slimy monster.

Mother and I are alone tonight as Herbert, my husband, has deserted me. Two nights A. F., (everything here is A. F. and B. F. ) he left me for the Red Cross, and hasn't been home at night since. I fully expect him to get a permanent job as night watchman at the ice house - which, by the way, has been moved half a mile downstream into a neighbor's garden. The neighbor, being a lawyer, made a pretty good haul: a perfectly good new iron bridge, delivered at his front door; an up and coming ice house, knocked down; and many running feet of well-seasoned lumber. The supply bids fair to last him at least all winter. He hasn’t quite decided what to do with the bridge, unless he builds a river under it. His porte cochére was in the way of the bridge, so it was moved - didn't cost him a cent, either, for the moving. It might have cost a few undertakers bills if it had been moved any farther, for the whole family was in the house with nowhere to go, but "out", and nowhere to stay when they got there - nothing that went "out", stayed - it kept on going until it met something stronger, then there was tragedy. That was the sad part of the flood, there were so many stronger things, and the diluted mud, in its rushing, insane career, was strongest of all. How it swept along with it ponderous bridges and huge granite blocks, when usually it was hard work for big derricks to stir them, is testimony of its terrific power. After living through one night with it swirling and roaring around us, only about two feet below our second floor, and having seen and heard it detach apparently sound buildings from the one in which we hoped to be allowed to remain, we can't seem to take any comfort in even a gentle shower. Gad! what a night! We know what it is to look into eternity.

A heavy rain began to fall at about ten o'clock Wednesday evening, November second, and didn't let up appreciably all that night nor all the next day, the third. At noon, when we went to the State House, the North Branch River, back of our house, was very high, and the water, in the streets at the corner below our house, came up to the running board of the car. At about two o'clock in the afternoon, the fire alarm sounded the “Merchant’s call for high water.” I 'phoned Mother to see if the water had reached our garden, but she said that it had just touched the river wall on the other side of the river and had not come to the top of our garden wall.

Half an hour later, I went into the lobby of the State House and met the daughter of the Secretary of State running in, all out of breath. She told me that the ice house dam had just gone out and the water was rising very fast; that when she came by my house, the garden was under water. I 'phoned Mother again and she said it was true - she was much frightened and I told her that I would come right home. I called to the people in the office across the hall to get someone to carry me home and by the time I had my hat and coat on, one of the janitors was ready to take me in his car. It took about three minutes to get home. The streets near our house were already flooded and our driveway was under water near the street, where it is lower. The garden, much lower than the part of the driveway entering the garage, was entirely submerged.

- in 1925 we had five feet of water in the cellar and we hadn't taken out anything, so we tried to save things this time.

We brought up our sixteen dozen water glass eggs, and all of my cousin's eggs and preserves, as neither she nor her maid was at home. (You probably remember that my cousin and her husband, Henry, live downstairs, and Mother, Herbert and I have the upstairs apartment in a house owned by Uncle Edward. You also remember that the house is a large, substantial one, built about fifty years ago, when most houses had a carriage house and barn attached. These were later used as garages.) As we were carrying up the last of the preserves, Henry and my husband arrived, and the janitor went back to the State House. He told me afterward that he never expected to get there, the water was so high and swift.

Henry took the motor to his oil burner and some storm windows up from the cellar and when he went back to put out the fire in the dummy (sp?) hot water heater, he found the water already coming into the cellar. We carried everything of ours out into the lower part of the shed - or garage - which was attached to the house, and Henry decided to take the storm windows out there also. All this time, the water was rising rapidly. And yet the boys said it wouldn’t come any higher after it had crossed our driveway! - it would then spread out over the low lawns as it had before, and that would end it. It was so unheard of, so unheralded, so suddenly overwhelming! As the water was lapping the lower door-step of one of the fine colonial houses on Lower State Street, an old gentleman said to his wife, when she suggested moving the rugs upstairs, "Anna, I have lived in this house eighty-three years and the water has never come over that threshold yet. It won't come over it now.” He was wrong like all the rest. That ruthless current respected no time-honored customs.

Having moved things to apparent safety, Herbert went back down to the office, and Henry went across to Uncle Edward's, a few houses up the street. Mother and I were left alone, and I put on some hip boots and rescued lumber and things that drifted over from Judge Black's yard next door - he had just bought the place and was doing extensive repairing. His back steps floated over and I tied them to our back porch for safety! He had the workmen move all the furniture that had been stored downstairs in his barn, into the house. The water was so high that they had to make a bridge of doors and boxes to get across with the last of it, a grand piano. And still the rain fell in torrents and the water rose and thundered by!

There was nothing we could do with the car - it just had to stay there. Mother's beautiful big mirror with Florentine gilt frame, six feet high and four feet wide, was stored in that garage. It was in a solid box about the size of old-fashioned piano and it usually took four men to move it. It was one of a pair made for my Grandfather to put at either end of his big parlor in Boston, and we had always hoped to have it up again when we had a space large enough to accommodate it. As the water reached the mirror I phoned frantically for Herbert, but couldn't find him. I tried to call again, but the water had penetrated the cable - the line was dead! Even then, I thought the rise might stop in a few inches and that if we could raise the box on blocks, the mirror would be saved. Just then, Herbert came in, having waded over from Uncle Edward's where he had to abandon his car. He put on hip boots and we floated the box across the further garage to the one next to the house, where the floor was about a foot higher. The water was about six inches deep then. By the time we got the box into the higher garage, the water had begun to lift the loose boards in the floor there. It had reached the body of the car in the second garage and oil and gasoline were floating on the water. We found that we couldn't raise the box above water, so we floated it. heavy as it was, into the doorway that led to the little hall at the foot of the stairs leading up into our shed and to our kitchen door. And still the water rose and the current increased!

All the preserves were under at least eight inches of muddy water by this time, and we had to feel around to find them. The radio battery, eggs, storm windows, all the other things from the cellar, and two of my cousin's trunks which had been downstairs in the shed, went upstairs in marvellously short time. We passed the light things up to Mother, and Herbert and I took up the heavy ones. I took one last look into the second garage and saw that the beams were straining apart and that the outside door, which we could hardly move, was swaying back and forth like a piece of paper under the force of the current. I was up to my knees in icy water which was still rising, and I realized that I would have to abandon the cherished mirror, floating in the hallway. As I went upstairs, I remembered that an inlaid antique table, which I prized, was upstairs in the second garage, so Herbert and I tiptoed out there, fearing all the time that our weight might cause its collapse. We rescued the table and set it in the house. Then we went back and took from a big trunk all the clothing - Mother's and my winter things. All of our trunks were stored in that shed next the house, as we couldn't get them up the narrow stairs to the attic. There were also boxes of books, photographs, records - including the family Bible - some of Mother's china and glass, a big silver bowl and pitcher and other choice old things which had been wedding presents to her and Dad. Some of Mother’s furniture was there, and a great many antiques which Herbert and I had collected.

Mother and Herbert went through the house and down to my cousin’s apartment to take up the rugs, while I stopped to pull off the hip boots. By the time I got down there the water was over the floors and we had to wade. We carried things upstairs as fast as we could run. When the water reached Mother's ankles, we made her stay in the upper hall and take things from us, but Herbert and I worked until the water was up to my hips and we were about paralized with the cold. To make conditions worse, the oil from the oil burner in the cellar was floating on the water, and chairs were sailing about and bumping into us. We took upstairs several chairs, a large table and a small one, electric lamps, cushions, bedding, clothing, drawers from the secretary, from the sideboard, desk and bureaus, and as many other perishable articles as we could carry, including velour portiéres. When we couldn't go back for more, I was afraid that the water might cause a short circuit, so I went upstairs and out into the first shed to shut off the downstairs current at the meter. As I stepped into the shed from our kitchen, there was an awful rending and cracking sound from the second shed. I could see the timbers splitting apart! But I went down the three steps from the platform by the door, across to the switch, pulled the lever, and darted back into the house. As I entered,I looked back. The second shed tore away from the shed next to the house, settled a little, and sailed out into the garden before my very eyes! Oh, what a moment! And how the water thundered and surged around and by the house! And how the rain hammered on the remaining shed roof! It was deafening, but not loud enough to drown the cries for help which came from houses on the opposite bank of the river.

We had to have heat if we were to be marooned, for goodness knew how long, upstairs in a heatless house with only a fireplace and a little oil in an oil stove. Into the first shed again and throw the wood over to the platform by the kitchen door. Mother and Herbert were in the front of the house. I finished getting into the kitchen all the wood that was upstairs - the rest was floating in the other garage in the garden - and was carrying the axe and hatchet into the house, when my eye fell on a Windsor chair that belonged to a friend in Massachusetts. It was right next to where the wall of the floating garage had been - now it was next to nothing! I had to have that chair, and the shed hadn't cracked under me yet. I crept cautiously toward it, and leaving all of our antique stands, chairs, bottles, brass kettles and andirons sitting there next to the elements, I grasped the chair, dashed into the house and turned off the lights just as Mother and Herbert came to get me.

Somehow, I couldn't seem to help wanting to rescue things in the shed, in spite of the fact that Mother and Herbert didn't want me to. I happened to think that all our tools were in a cabinet about six feet from the kitchen door. I went out and grabbed a handful, including a hammer and nails in case we needed them. I didn't have time to save boxes of fine laces and ribbons which we kept in the same cabinet, for the thought flashed over me that we must have food, and the refrigerator was next to the door. I called to Mother and Herbert to come and take the things that I handed to them, and I gave them milk, butter, cream and even two partridges which herbert had shot a few days before. Again, I could her screams and cries for help from across the river, but there was no help! And again, went in, turned off the lights, and closed the door. Mother had already lighted candles as we feared that the electricity wouldn't last long. We were still in the kitchen, when there was a creaking and groaning from the shed, and then the crashing of the refrigerator and cabinet falling from the little platform by the door. Another shrieking, tearing sound and the lights went out, as the side of the shed, with the electric meters attached, was torn away from the wall of the house - the wall of the kitchen where we were! And the first shed, with the things rescued from the cellar, all our trunks, antiques, big mirror, Mother's sideboard and dining table, and most of her lovely old keepsakes of the past - together with the Judge's back steps, so carefully tied to our faithless porch post! - set sail for an unknown port! "Spurlos versenkt! We haven’t seen it or its contents since - except - but that comes later.

Herbert saw the two two-story buildings sailing unconcernedly out between the judge's and the next house and heading down Main Street. As they went, they broke the electric wires in their path and plunged the whole neighborhood into darkness. When we could no longer see outdoors, we started to get supper on the oil heating stove and at the fire-place in the living room. We began watching and listening for a boat, which Herbert ensured us would be right along. We didn’t have sense enough to figure out that there might not be any in town and if there were, that they might not be able to survive the terrible current. We seemed to think that as long as there were no busses, there must be boats. We put on our hats and rubbers, and had our coats nearby. We also bundled up various belongings to take with us. Then we waited. As I sat by the fireplace, it seemed as if I must wake up and find it all a hideous nightmare. Every few minutes we went into the hall with a candle and measured the rise of the water on the stairs. It reached five feet in no time and then advanced more slowly, but kept steadily rising, rising, rising! When Herbert reported that it was within five steps of the top, we began to move things into the attic - all the bedding and some of our choice possessions. And still the water crept up, until It had touched the tread of the fourth stair from our floor. People were calling from windows of nearby houses to see if anyone had seen boats. It was hard to hear above the noise of the water, but there was no panic, no hysteria. They had all become resigned to waiting - for what? We were all sure that we had seen a boat at the corner below us and that it would be after us soon.

I was so sure of it that I kept my hat on most of the night! We learned the next day that a power boat had been there at the corner and had nearly capsized in the terrible eddy, striking a pole and just escaping, so that the operators found it was useless to try to rescue anyone at night. The water was almost to the top of our piazza roof and we thought it would be easy to get into a boat from there, but we didn't realize the hazard of water filled with moving buildings and debris, nor the strength of the current surrounding our house. It wasn't just nice clean, calm, quiet water; it was muddy, swirling, roaring, angry torrent. Every now and then, as we watched for the boats that didn't come, we saw whirling past, vague shapes a little blacker than the black flood. For a moment they might pause as they careened against a tree or a house, and then they were snatched away into the inky night. What chance would a boat have against these huge, unguided objects?

It was eight feet, three inches deep in the downstairs front hall! My cousin's hall sofa floated directly over the stairway, and a dining room chair also came up the stairs. Herbert fished that out of the water, but the sofa was too much for him.

After midnight the water began to go down a tiny bit and the rain seemed to have let up. We breathed easier, and Mother slept a little. She lay down on the davenport, but Herbert and I sat and wondered. Then, suddenly, it began to pour and we were terrorized again. Things downstairs kept thumping against the ceiling and walls and we were sure that the house was going, the ell at least. But the water kept receding a little at a time until the fifth step showed, and then the sixth. Herbert decided to lie down on the floor and get some sleep. He had no sooner put his head down on a pillow that there came a bangety! bang! - directly under his head. He shot into the air, thinking that the house was breaking up. I told him that it was only the davenport or desk or something downstairs bumping into the chandelier, but he wouldn't believe me for a long time. Such sounds, all night long, did not add anything to our comfort of mind, let me tell you.

We opened the door from the hall into the dining room very cautiously so that we wouldn't step out into space - and water ! We weren't sure that the ell of the house hadn't gone in the night to find the garages, but we found the floor still there and the walls appeared to be sound, so we went to look out the back door where once we would have looked into the upper shed. There, not more than a yard below our feet, was the seething flood tearing at the corner of the house, and no garages in sight nothing but water rushing past with trees, and parts of buildings, and animals! Across the river was a little house torn from its foundations and hanging partway into the river, its barn and ell vanished, its roof caught against the next house. No wonder we had heard screams the night before! An open window told us that the occupant, a long man, had escaped to the roof of the porch next door, and we felt a little relieved.

From second and third story windows, the marooned inhabitants -very cheerful at being alive - called greetings to each other. As the morning wore on, boats came into sight - boats that had been built by amateurs during the night.

A street pigeon flew over the watery community, and I'll wager that the dove of old didn't look any better to Noah than that bird did to us. Later in the day, a reconnoitering airplane hummed above us - a modern version of the dove with the olive branch.

It was nearly noon before the tops of automobiles, stalled on the streets at about five o'clock the night before, began to show after being entirely submerged in that muddy water for at least fifteen hours. Some of the people in neighboring houses slid down ropes from windows and porch roofs into boats. Three girls across the street were taken out on a raft, which was kept from being swept downstream, by a long rope held by men up the street.

We didn't try to get out until about four o'clock in the afternoon of November fourth, when the water had receded from the first floor, leaving over everything a five or six inch coating of slimy mud that smelled of all sorts of things - oil, gasoline and other crude and un-perfumed elements. We finally went down the slippery stairs, across the oozy floor, and out through my cousin’s [living?] room window , which we had to break as no doors nor windows could be forced open. We slipped and slid along the downstairs piazza to two queer boats which carried Mother, Herbert and me and many of our belongings over to Uncle Edward's house up the street.

They had had five feet of water in the first floor rooms over there, and everything was in awful condition, but the water had gone down earlier there, and they had men playing the hose full force on floors and furniture. They had moved some things onto the piazza to be washed and scraped off. The mud was thick, smelly and slimy on everything

Some of the furniture was coming apart and the veneer was curling and blistering on other pieces. The woodwork was cracked and the stairs and floors, warped. The cellar and furnaces were about a foot deep in the loathsome mud.

On the second floor of this flood-stricken house nine of us lived for two weeks. We had to drink boiled water to avoid typhoid. For a week we had our meals cooked mostly at the fireplace in one of the sleeping rooms, and we welcomed the food brought us by friends who were not in the flooded area. At first we had to have a permit to buy food from the stores - we could get only enough for one day and there was no variety, as local stocks had been ruined and only bare necessities could be shipped in by trucks. We ate all our meals upstairs, because it was so foul smelling and dirty downstairs, although washed out with the hose several times. There was no electricity for several days, no gas for about two weeks and no telephone most of that time. For the first three nights and days there was no heat in that big house except the one fireplace. The other five sleeping rooms were clammy cold, and believe me, blankets were at a premium. I had one under me and a down puff and five more over me and still I was cold. It was bitter cold outdoors for two or three days after the flood, and that added materially to the discomfort of the people in water-soaked houses.