Johnstown was a small and pleasant city situated in a valley between slopes of the beautiful Allegheny Mountains in southwestern Pennsylvania. Settled on the banks of the Conemaugh River at the time of the American Revolution, it was a center for iron and coal operations.
Beth's stepfather earned his modest fortune pioneering as a corporate attorney for the developing steel companies that located in Johnstown after the Civil War. Despondent over his wife's approaching death, the first ray of light in his life for the past several months was setting eyes on his stepdaughter and little Romelle at the railway station on the twentieth of May.
"My goodness, Poppa," remarked Beth on the way to the house, "it seems awfully cold for May! Paris is just lovely this year. It was quite warm when we left."
Her stepfather hurried the horses, knowing how anxious his wife was to see her family together.
"Yes, your mother's all upset because the wood violets are going to be late," he said. "We had a hard frost, and then this unseasonable cold, and now tons of rain. I'm beginning to lose hope they'll bloom before....."
"Yes, Poppa, I know," interrupted Beth, thinking of the wood violets she planted at Camden Place on the Prince Imperial's birthday in 1879.
Annie sat in the rear holding Romelle, admiring the tree-lined streets and fine old homes. After the pitching of the ship and the rocking of the train, Pepper ran alongside the carriage, delighted to be on dry and steady land.
The days passed swiftly once everyone settled in. Romelle loved to sit on her grandmother's bed for long periods of time, listening to childhood stories about Beth. Her favorite was the escape from Richmond when "the Yankees came pouring in like field mice let loose in a harvest of grain."
"Then your momma, who was just a trifle older than you," her grandmother, propped up with pillows, would say, "ran out of the closet where we were hiding, and marched right over to the Yankee soldiers who had broken through our door, and she said to them, 'Y'all go on now, or my poppa's gonna spank you good when he comes home from the war!' And do you know what they did, Romelle? They laughed and laughed, and, glory be, they up and turned around and went away! Your momma was a brave little girl."
Romelle looked at her mother, seated smiling in a chair near the bed.
"Momma," she asked, "am I brave as you?"
Beth leaned over and kissed her. "Of course, you are, darling, even braver, I'll bet!"
Beth's mother had so improved by Friday, the thirty-first of May, that she proposed they carry her downstairs to the parlor.
"You can play the piano, Beth, and perhaps Annie will sing for me. Oh, wouldn't that be lovely?"
"Yes, Mother," Beth agreed, "as soon as Poppa comes home from the pharmacy with your medicine, and when Annie comes back with Pepper from their walk."
"Annie's walking in this rain?" Beth's mother asked, surprised. "I hope she doesn't catch a cold!"
"I doubt she will," smiled Beth, "She wore a scarf and a slicker and a hat and good, strong shoes. Nothing keeps Annie from her walks! You remember our housekeeper in Paris, Adrienne André? She's an inveterate walker, the fastest I've ever seen. She got Annie into the habit, 'to slim her down,' she says, not that it does a bit of good when it comes to slimming Old Annie!"
"Well, I hope she'll be alright," her mother said. "When did your father go to the pharmacy?"
 "Half an hour ago," Beth replied, looking out the window. "Oh, here he comes, now, across the park! I suppose he must have gone to the grocer's, too. His arms are full of bags! I'll go help him."
As Beth went down, she glanced at the grandfather clock on the landing. The hands stood at three. She paused. Her hand went to her breast and felt the coin and the whistle on the chain beneath her dress.
Always on the thirty-first of May, she dreaded the mid-afternoon. She never failed to remember that the Prince Imperial had met his death shortly after four. It was a day she usually tried to spend alone, not wishing to subject others to the heaviness of her mood. She expelled her breath vigorously in an effort to shake off the spell.
Then, it happened.
The house rocked from an explosion somewhere far away. The stairs moved beneath her feet. She fell the remaining short flight to the hall.
Romelle ! she thought. My baby !
Collecting herself in an instant, she rushed upstairs to find her mother staring wide-eyed from among the pillows mounded on the bed. Romelle, shaken over the edge by the blast, clung desperately to the counterpane to keep from tumbling to the hardwood floor.
Beth snatched her daughter into her arms and ran to the window. A roaring like steady thunder penetrated her ears. The house trembled as if alive. Her stepfather stood below. He had dropped his packages. Looking up at her, he waved as if to say goodbye. In the same instant, she saw a spectacular wall of water twice the height of the house rolling swiftly toward them.
For Beth, the supreme horror was that it seemed to be happening in slow motion. The world was dissolving around her, but there was nothing she could do. She looked down at her feet and watched the floor lifting, but felt no movement. There was even time to catch a glimpse of her mother's bedstead rising, moving almost gently through a splintering wall. Her mother's eyes were wide and uncomprehending as she floated upward on her mattress, as though she were on a flying carpet in the Arabian Nights .
Romelle seemed light as a feather in Beth's arms. Beth held her tightly, shielding the child's face against her bosom.
Then, she blacked out.
Annie, walking in the hills above Johnstown with Pepper, had been descending to the Pennsylvania Railroad Bridge spanning the river a mile from the house. The rain was getting harder. She decided it was time to turn back.
She heard the violent explosion when the Conemaugh Dam, upriver, burst without warning after months of heavy rain and snow.
She saw the frightening mass of water funneling through the valley between the Allegheny slopes. It hit the town at a hundred miles an hour, destroying all in its path.
Annie could scarcely believe her eyes. Trees, people, horses, furniture, houses, even a railroad engine, boiled up in the muddy brown stew. Instinctively, she dashed up the hillside although the flood swept past her and over the bridge fifty feet below.
When she looked around, a tangled mass had come to a stop, wedged against the stone span of the trestle. It included whole buildings and wooden homes lifted from their foundations to ride the crest of the wave like ships. The railroad tracks and steel railings on the bridge were twisted out of shape.
It seemed inconceivable to Annie that anyone could have survived, but a very fat, naked woman popped out of a window in one of the houses and ran screaming along the bridge toward the hill.
As the shock of the terrifying event retreated from Annie's mind, it began to dawn on her that Beth and her family were somewhere in the debris, unless they had already been swept away.
Her heart began to pound as the realization sank in. Beth, her mother and stepfather, Romelle, all might well be dead.
Suddenly, Pepper perked up his ears and began to prance around Annie's feet. He barked, stopped, and listened again.
"What is it, dog?" Annie wondered aloud.
Pepper was frantic. He raced away barking and came back again. This he repeated two or three times. Finally, he grabbed her slicker with his teeth and tried desperately to tug her along.
"You want me to come? Is that what it is?"
She followed him on to the bridge, picking her way behind him through the rubble. Still, he ran ahead, turning to look and make sure that she was on his heels. Toward the middle of the span, she heard a singular noise above the moans and screams that had echoed in her ears along the way.
The noise was a whistle's shriek.
Pepper scratched frantically at a mass of timbers.
Annie ran to him and called out, "Beth! Is that you? Romelle?"
She heard a weak cry. "Annie! Annie! It's Beth! Help us, please!"
Beth had awakened to find Romelle still clasped in her arms, knocked unconscious somehow in the midst of the disaster. Her own legs were pinned beneath a heavy object. She could not rise.
The pressure of Romelle's body against her breast had caused her to feel the whistle. With much effort, she pulled it from her blouse and blew.
Again and again, she blew.
Outside, Annie tore at the wood with her bare hands. Pepper barked desperately at her side. Suddenly, the wreckage along the bridge shifted with the lessening flow of water below. The timbers blocking Annie's way fell apart.
Pepper dashed inside to Beth, crying and licking her face. Annie heaved herself inside, but had barely enough room to move.
"Take the baby," insisted Beth. "Take the baby and go!"
Annie shook her head. "But what about you?"
She looked at the object weighing down Beth's legs. Crawling over, she gave it a push. It would not budge.
Impatiently, Beth cried, "No, not now! Take the baby and go! You can come back for me."
Tears streaming down her face, Annie leaned down and kissed her, lifting the unconscious Romelle in her arms. Backing away on her knees, she had almost maneuvered herself out of the opening, when Beth called her back.
"Annie! Take the chain from around my neck. Put it around Romelle's. Hurry!"
Annie did as she was told.
Backing out again, she said, "I'll get help and return as quickly as I can. Pepper, come with me."
When she got outside and was able to stand, Annie saw that Pepper had stayed with Beth.
Annie ran as fast as she could to the hillside. Taking off her slicker, she laid it on the ground and placed the still unconscious little girl upon it. Then she looked to see if she could find someone to help free Beth.
As she turned back toward the river, the wreckage all along the bridge exploded into flames.
"My God!" she screamed. "Beth! Pepper! Beth!"
She dashed on to the bridge, but encountered a wall of fire that drove her back.
In the debris, after Annie left, Beth had searched for a way to extricate herself. The object across her legs was itself weighted by timbers from all sides. She looked up. It was the grandfather clock that had stood on the landing above the hall. Its face stared down at her, still registering the time - shortly past four, the hour when, on the same date ten years before, the Prince Imperial had died.
Beth thought of the Gypsy queen's words: Beware the water! Beware the fire !
In that dreadful moment, she heard the unmistakable roar and crackling of fire.
Pepper started at the noise, but made no effort to leave her. He lay down beside her and nuzzled her arm.
"Go, Pepper, go!" she whispered. "Go to Romelle!"
He made no move.
The confined area in which she was trapped became unbearably hot. She saw no fire, but blanched at its searing heat. Pepper pushed himself closer to her. Abruptly, he cocked his head to one side as if he had glimpsed something puzzling. Just as suddenly reassured, his affable tail began to wag.
"What is it, Pepper?"
 No sooner had she spoken than the fragrance of wood violets sweetened the air. Strong arms lifted her as she gazed into the face of the Prince Imperial, her beloved Eugene, dead these ten years to the very hour of this very day. She sensed rather than heard him whisper, "Come dream with me, my love," and then, with a joyous Pepper, the three of them simply flew away.
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