“But before that,” asked Walsh, “didn’t you try to escape?”
“It was all on fire over our heads,” replied the woman simply.
“Did you do anything to save your children?”
“What could I? Oh, yes. There was a woman there with a blanket. I asked her to share it with me for my babies; one was 6 months, you know, and the other 2½ years, and my boy 4. She told me it was only big enough for herself.”
Mrs. Petrucci sighed. It was the only display of emotion she made during the recital. That blanket--a corner of it might have saved one of the babies from the suffocation that quickly overtook all there. She sighed at the recollection.
“The next I knew,” she continued plaintively, “was when I woke up at 5 the next morning. I ran out for water for my babies. They were lying there. I thought water would help them. I did not know what I was doing. I felt like I was drunk. Outside I saw guards walking down the railroad tracks. They were laughing. I kept turning back all the time. I was afraid they would shoot me.”
Again the frightened look came into her dark ringed, black eyes. A score of women in the audience were weeping now. Save for their smothered sighs the room was in absolute silence. The clanging of a bell on one of the lower floors of the Metropolitan building rang out like a funeral note.
“I went to the railroad station,” said Mrs. Petrucci. “I didn’t know what I was doing. I asked Mrs. Horning to go look for my babies. She said she could not find them. Someone bought me a ticket for Trinidad. I was in bed there nine days with pneumonia. I did not see my children again.”
A woman on the front row groaned and Mrs. Petrucci looked down at her with dazed eyes.
“Don’t you know how the fire started?” asked Commissioner Weinstock.
“No, sir; the beginning of the fire was in my tent. It was about 6 o’clock. It was still light. It started outside.”
“But when you went out didn’t you see anyone?”
For a full two minutes the commissioners gazed silently at the woman. Then finally Weinstock asked:
“When you went to the railroad station what did you think had become of your children?”
“I wasn’t thinking of anything,” replied Mrs. Petrucci, clasping her handkerchief to her breast.
Mother Jones took the woman in her arms as she stepped from the stand and led her away.