In technical language, the core had
"floated" an eighth of an inch from its position. The weak spot in the
too thin wall of the pillar had bided its time, and yielded. The roof,
the walls, the machinery, fell upon seven hundred and fifty living
men and women, and buried them. Most of these were rescued; but
eighty-eight were killed. As the night came on, those watchers on
Andover Hill who could not join the rescuing parties, saw a strange
and fearful light at the north.
Where we were used to watching the beautiful belt of the lighted mills
blaze,--a zone of laughing fire from east to west, upon the horizon
bar,--a red and awful glare went up. The mill had taken fire. A
lantern, overturned in the hands of a man who was groping to save an
imprisoned life, had flashed to the cotton, or the wool, or the
oil with which the ruins were saturated. One of the historic
conflagrations of New England resulted.
With blanching cheeks we listened to the whispers that told us how the
mill-girls, caught in the ruins beyond hope of escape, began to sing.
They were used to singing, poor things, at their looms--mill-girls
always are--and their young souls took courage from the familiar sound
of one another's voices. They sang the hymns and songs which they had
learned in the schools and churches.
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