They went down to the lower floor. Now it was perceptibly lighter. The cloud fringe sweeping like a huge broom was passing as swiftly as it had come. The rain lessened in force, the grey outside brightened. The doctor and his wife looked at one another, and both looked at Mary, who stood beside a window staring out.
"Now, Mother," said Dr. Lowell briskly, "you get me a sandwich or something, I've got to start out. Mary! help your mother, will you? You might as well fill up a basket, as quick as you can--put in anything you've got, in five minutes--don't know how long I may be--"
He was already fastening his rubber coat, his old hat jammed down on his head. Mary followed her mother, blindly obeying her quick directions in the kitchen. The basket was packed by the time the doctor came out with his medicine-chest and a big roll of surgical dressings.
"Where you going?" Mrs. Lowell then demanded.
"There'll be some damage where that thing struck," said the doctor cheerfully. "I'm going over there. Don't you sit up for me, I may be all night. You better keep Mary here, till Laurence comes for her."
But Mary was putting on an old cloak of her mother's that hung in the entry.
"I'm going with you. Laurence is over there," she said.
Mrs. Lowell started to protest, but looking at Mary's face, stopped, and went to get a scarf to tie over her hair. The doctor said nothing, but went to hitch up his horse and put a feed of grain into the back of the buggy. They started. Satan indicated his displeasure at the turn of things by rearing up in the shafts and then trying to kick the dashboard in; but the doctor gave him the whip and he decided to go.
The road was mud-puddles, ruts and gullies, and strewn with branches, sometime great boughs or fence-rails lay across it. Other people were on the way now. Satan passed everything going in their direction. Salutations and comments were shouted at the doctor. Then they began to meet people coming the other way; the doctor did not stop to talk, but a man called to him that Elmville had been wiped out by the cyclone.
Two miles on they came to a cluster of houses where a crowd had gathered, most of them refugees who had fled before the storm. Two houses here had been un-roofed, sheds blown away, and the place was littered with splinters, but nobody was seriously hurt. From there on they met a stream of people, nearly all the population of Elmville, including the people from the creamery who had escaped into the prairie laden with whatever goods they could carry. Then they reached the last buildings left standing by the storm--a farmhouse and barns, by some freak of the wind untouched, a mile from Elmville. These were crowded with people from the town, mostly women and children, and a few men, some of them injured. The doctor pulled up his horse and shouted an inquiry for Laurence. Oh, Captain Carlin was all right, he had been there when the storm struck, had started home but decided he couldn't make it and stopped there--he had driven back now to see what he could do, and most of the men had gone after him. Wouldn't the doctor come in? One of the men had a broken leg and there was a woman with her head hurt by a flying brick, they thought she would die. The doctor hesitated. Mary said: