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CHAPTER XII
THE TRAGIC HOME-COMING
THE CARPATHIA REACHES NEW YORK—AN INTENSE AND
DRAMATIC MOMENT—HYSTERICAL REUNIONS AND CRUSHING
DISAPPOINTMENTS AT THE DOCK—CARING FOR THE SUFFERERS
—FINAL REALIZATION THAT ALL HOPE FOR OTHERS IS
FUTILE—LIST OF SURVIVORS—ROLL OF THE DEAD
Sinking of the Titanic and Great Sea Disasters |  |
TWO LITTLE BOYS
Among the survivors who elicited a large measure of sympathy were two little French boys who were dropped, almost naked, from the deck of the sinking Titanic into a life-boat. From what place in France did they come and to what place in the New World were they bound? There was not one iota of information to be had as to the identity of the waifs of the deep, the orphans of the Titanic.
The two baby boys, two and four years old, respectively, were in charge of Miss Margaret Hays, who is a fluent speaker of French, and she had tried vainly to get from the lisping lips of the two little ones some information that would lead to the finding of their relatives.
Miss Hays, also a survivor of the Titanic, took charge of the almost naked waifs on the Carpathia. She became
The two little curly-heads did not understand it all. Had not their pretty nineteen-year-old foster mother provided them with pretty suits and little white shoes and playthings a-plenty? Then, too, Miss Hays had a Pom dog that she brought with her from Paris and which she carried in her arms when she left the Titanic and held to her bosom through the long night in the life-boat, and to which the children became warmly attached. All three became aliens on an alien shore.
Miss Hays, unable to learn the names of the little fellows, had dubbed the older Louis and the younger "Lump." "Lump" was all that his name implies, for he weighed almost as much as his brother. They were dark-eyed and brown curly-haired children, who knew how to smile as only French children can.
On the fateful night of the Titanic disaster and just as the last boats were pulling away with their human freight, a man rushed to the rail holding the babes under his arms. He cried to the passengers in one of the boats and held the children aloft. Three or four sailors and passengers held up their arms. The father dropped the older boy. He was safely caught. Then he dropped the little fellow and saw him folded in the arms of a sailor. Then the boat pulled away.
The last seen of the father, whose last living act was
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CHAPTER XII
THE TRAGIC HOME-COMING
THE CARPATHIA REACHES NEW YORK—AN INTENSE AND
DRAMATIC MOMENT—HYSTERICAL REUNIONS AND CRUSHING
DISAPPOINTMENTS AT THE DOCK—CARING FOR THE SUFFERERS
—FINAL REALIZATION THAT ALL HOPE FOR OTHERS IS
FUTILE—LIST OF SURVIVORS—ROLL OF THE DEAD
Sinking of the Titanic and Great Sea Disasters | |