The people of Burin knew about the Bank Crash in New York and the Depression that was beginning to sink economies all over the western world but they were not too worried about themselves. They had put a bit away during their good years. They had learned to be prudent over the years, to take absolutely nothing for granted. William Brushett was out of debt now and he intended to stay that way. When he talked about the Bank Crash with his neighbours they spoke of their pity for urban dwellers.
“At least we got our pantries full of food,” William would say. “Salt cod, herring, a bit of salmon and smoked caplin. Root crops. Things we can hunt. We’ll never starve to death, but I don’t know what will happen to those people in the cities with this Bank Crash and the money worth nothing.”
William had thought of these things as he walked into the woods on the fine, clear morning of November 18, 1929, his axe in his hand. He drank in the cool autumn air and enjoyed the sounds of chickadees and juncos. He took long strides, his belly contented with the scrambled eggs and bacon Carrie had prepared for his breakfast. The tea she made, too, it was always wonderful; somehow, she always made the best tea.
William was on his way to get the family’s winter supply of wood. He’d gone in the bay, away from rocky Burin, and later when the snow came, he would bring his horse back to fetch his cords of wood. It was a beautiful day for a journey of any kind and he imagined that Carrie would have made good use of the kind weather to wash and dry clothes. You almost couldn’t believe winter was at hand.
Someone was shaking Pearl. Was it that strange rumbling again? She hoped not; she hadn’t liked that at all. She just wanted to sleep. But her mother wouldn’t let her.
“Wake them up, Mommy!” she thought she heard Lottie say.
“Pearl, get up,” Carrie said. Pearl heard the firmness in her voice.
“Mommy, I’m tired,” Pearl mumbled. “I’m too tired to go to school.”
“Pearl, get up now,” Carried insisted. Pearl sat up in bed at once. “Get up and put this on.”
Her mother tossed her winter coat at her. Pearl rubbed her eyes. She was surprised to see her older brother, Fred, standing in her room, all dressed in his winter clothes. Her mother held little James, also wearing his winter coat. The bed was empty beside her, and Lottie was standing next to their brothers shivering. The room was dark; it must be night still, Pearl thought. What was going on?
The little girl jumped out of bed and wrapped her winter coat around her. She stared at her mother who was peeping out through the curtains which she had drawn tightly together. Pearl leaned over to look, but Carrie tightened the curtains in her hand.
“Keep away from the window!” she ordered.
But Pearl had already seen crushed stages and flakes and the debris-filled harbour. But she knew it wasn’t Kelly’s Cove.
“Mommy, what’s happening?” she asked. She looked at her mother whose face was tight in a frown. Carrie said nothing. Pearl looked at her brother Fred. As he opened his mouth, he caught his mother’s eye and clamped shut. Pearl raised huge eyes to her mother’s face. Then she noticed that the floor underneath her seemed unsteady.
“Hold onto the bedpost, children!” Carrie said. The baby in her arms began to wail. Carrie’s knuckles went white as she continued to peer out through the sliver of an opening in the curtains.
Then the house seemed as if it were flying. The older children clung to the bedpost even as the bed slid across the floor. Carrie clutched James and stood with her back flat against the wall at a right angle to the window. Somehow she stayed upright.
“Mommy!” the children cried in unison.
Then the house stopped flying and everything seemed to stop.
“It’s still,” Pearl cried. “Mommy, where are we?”
Carrie drew back the curtain slightly and let out a great gasp.
“Oh God, my God, thank God” she said. “We’re back home.”
She laid the baby and her toddler on Pearl’s bed and picked up her daughter’s chair. She hurled it through the window.
“Help!” she cried. “Help us!”
Pearl’s mouth hung open as blood ran down her mother’s wrist but Carrie ignored it. Then she rushed to the window and watched her chair fly to the ground. My father built that chair, she thought, pout-faced.
“Help us!” her mother cried again.
“We can go downstairs,” said Pearl’s brother Fred. “We can get out that way.”
“Good boy,” said Carrie. “See if you can do that.”
The boy left Pearl’s bedroom and hurried down the narrow hallway to the stairs. But he stopped at the top; the stairway was covered in frigid seawater. Below him chairs, table legs, and his mother’s knitting floated eerily. He screamed.
“Mommy! We can’t go down there!” he howled. “The stairs are full of water.”
“It’s all right, it’s all right,” Carrie said, though her breathing came rapidly. “Ben and Beatrice Hollett are down there. See? They see us. They’re going to get us.” She took her son’s hand and led him toward the broken window.
Pearl was shivering now. But she couldn’t stop thinking about her broken chair. She still didn’t know what had happened. How could the stairs be full of water? Was she dreaming? Perhaps she was being visited by the old hag? None of this made any sense…
With little James perched on her hip, Carrie ran back to the top of the stairs. She exhaled in relief when she saw that the water was low enough that they could walk downstairs.
“Come on, children!” she cried. “Everyone follow me.”
Fred, Lottie, Lillian who had retrieved her still warm plate for her ear, and Pearl trailed after their mother down the stairs through icy water. They let out shrieks as the coldness pierced their bones. They looked from the sea water to the parlour window as they heard the shattering of glass.
Then Pearl felt her mother’s arms around her and she was being passed to someone on a ladder. He carried her to the beach. It was freezing. Her little brother James was crying. Her mother was still in the house with her big brother. “We went all the way to Bartlett’s Island!” Carrie cried. Really? Pearl wondered. Then they were all on the beach. She blanched at the crimson that was spreading across her mother’s arm.
“She needs a bandage,” Beatrice Hollett said.
“Get to higher ground!” someone called. Maybe it was Mr. Hollett. They ran as fast as they could to Humpess Head, Pearl holding Carrie’s hand. Something was chasing them. As they ran, Pearl glanced behind to see that it was a wall of ice water and it took their house again and carried it away where they could no longer see it. On the hill where they finally found safety, Carrie Brushett pulled her five children to her and sobbed from the deepest part of her belly.
When William Brushett rowed into Kelly’s Cove on Great Burin Island two days later, his heart was thumping. He had felt the rumbling, heard the thunder, and watched the walls of water steal houses and take lives. The night before he reached Kelly’s Cove he paced a friend’s floor in the village of Stepaside, worrying for Carrie and his children. Now, as snow fell on his shoulders while he rowed, the cove was chock-a-block with debris, mostly wood from dories, schooners, and buildings. William was afraid he would see a body.
When he hauled his boat up, he met Ben Hollett, who called, “yes, they’re safe,” before William could even ask. William’s tears flowed in rivers and he let out a great sob that filled the harbour. He glanced up at the village and saw Pearl come round the corner of a neighbour’s house. “My chair is gone, Daddy!” she cried. “The one you made for me.” He ran toward her and pulled her off the ground into his big fisherman’s arm. He held her tight as he faced the harbour and surveyed the damage the
William could see right away that his house was gone. So were his flake and his stage. The Brushetts lost the three barrels of potatoes and two barrels of turnips that would have seen them through the winter. Their five hens were drowned. They’d also lost the four gallons of molasses they’d bought. Gone also was their two tons of coal and two cords of firewood, their means of staying warm from now until spring would break months later. The long wild ride to Bartlett’s Island had cost William and Carrie Brushett possessions worth $1,493—everything they owned. All they had left was the forty dollars in William’s pocket. But Fred, Lottie, Lillian, Pearl, and James were alive and they only had cuts and bruises.
