about the quake. In the last one, only seven or eight years before, he had been told, almost every building, or at least every brick building, had fallen down or sustained considerable damage—Andrew had read all about it in his voracious way. Since it was unsafe to go back in the house for more than a moment, they decided to pull on their clothes as quickly as they could and then go see what they could see. Andrew was sure that this earthquake, like the one seven years earlier, was a local one—important to Mare Island, and perhaps Vallejo and Benicia, but not much in the larger scheme of things. Naturally, he first checked on the observatory. The telescope was fine—it did not seem to have moved at all. Oddly, though, two picture frames were flipped face to the wall, yet no books or papers had fallen. At first this earthquake merely thrilled Andrew, as an example of what geological dynamics were capable of. It was a clear day, bright and fresh. Margaret was more frightened than Andrew, but still somewhat invigorated by the very novelty of the thing.
The navy already knew, however, because of wireless transmissions, that part of San Francisco had crumpled to the ground—all the buildings and tenements down near the Embarcadero and the wharf. Margaret was relieved, just at the very first, for the briefest interval, to hear this. Andrew exclaimed, “The Palace Hotel is at Third and Market, quite a ways from the water.” And though buildings were down, not that many deaths had occurred, except maybe in Chinatown. Chinatown was ten blocks or more from the Palace Hotel, and the Palace, unlike the buildings in Chinatown, had been built to the highest standard. For about half an hour, they took comfort in that. They ran to the ferry landing, as yet somewhat optimistic, but at the ferry landing, they felt an aftershock, which was more unnerving, in a way, than earlier, stronger shocks. It was this aftershock that brought on the dread.
Each ferry was more jammed with men, women, and children than the one before it. Some people were carrying bundles, and some were carrying nothing at all. Almost everyone was dirty and disheveled, and all were telling of harrowing escapes. Many of them had no friends or relatives or business in Vallejo; they had just jumped on the first ferry they could. All the ferries were heading out—to Oakland, Alameda, anywhere away from the city. Through the afternoon, they expected to see Andrew’s mother and Mrs. Hitchens, a little disarranged, perhaps, but full of energy and curiosity, thrilled to tell them all about it. Each traveler added to the general knowledge, and with each story they heard, Margaret was forced to picture the devastation creeping toward Third and Market, but no one knew for sure whether the Palace Hotel was down or not. And as bad as it was in San Francisco, it was rumored that conditions were worse to the northwest. Santa Rosa was flattened, they said. Just about then, with the aftershock and the tales told by the survivors, Andrew began to get frantic.
The earthquake was succeeded by fire, and the navy was sending three ships, including a hospital ship, across the bay. Andrew went straight to the Commandant and forced himself into a meeting—he begged to go on one ship or another, he was tall and strong, but the Commandant wouldn’t hear of it. Then Andrew decided to take one of the returning ferries, but just then, news came in that the ferry terminal at the foot of Mission was already burned to the waterline. Mrs. Early and Mrs. Hitchens had not been on any returning ferry, and of course no one knew them. All Andrew and Margaret could do was mill about in the crowd and listen. There were miraculous escapes. A fellow from Vallejo had gone to San Francisco the day before, taken a hotel room, and been put on the fourth floor; when his hotel collapsed, he had dropped to the ground from his shattered window and run for his life. Andrew asked him which hotel—the Brunswick. Where was his hotel from the Palace? Sixth and Howard, four blocks, said Andrew, six at the most, half a mile as the crow flies. But people had helped this man—he wasn’t even wearing his own clothes. The lesson Andrew took from this conversation was that Mrs. Early and Mrs. Hitchens could so easily be helped. Statistically, Andrew kept telling