“I don’t think so,” said Jim, though he didn’t know where this thought came from.

Then John Joe’s face lit up.

“I know! She’s upstairs!” he cried. “She’s upstairs!”

Over the next half hour, they got another dory into The Pond and used pressure to sink the house again so that the floor of the second storey was level with the water. Then they saw the cot where Margaret would surely be found. It was covered in chocolate-coloured mud and seaweed.

“I’ll go in and get her little body,” Jim said.

“Tread carefully,” Herb cautioned. “Or the whole house will go topsy-turvy.”

Jim reached into the crib, pushed away the debris the ocean had churned up, and took the little girl’s body. As he carried her to the dory, he thought he heard her sigh. He looked at her face and thought she was a bit pink for a child who had drowned. Perhaps… He rushed her to the small boat and the waiting men.

“I think she might be alive!” he said excitedly.

Herb and John Joe crowded in on Margaret. They peeled off their coats and wrapped them around the child as tightly as they could. Jim rocked her and blew hot air on her face as the other two men rowed as fast as they could. Once onshore he ran with her in his arms to John Joe’s house.

“I think she’s alive!” he cried, hurrying past a row of anxious people in the hallway. “Get some warm water! Quick!”

When Alberta Fitzpatrick eased Margaret into the tub of warm water the child suddenly woke and screamed. At the sound of her voice, everyone in the house, and then Lord’s Cove itself, made the joyful noise their hearts had longed to make. Their child had been saved.

11

Ben and Beatrice Hollett had watched open-mouthed on the shore of Kelly’s Cove as the giant wave reached in and picked up their neighbour’s house and carried it out to sea. Inside, Carrie Brushett and her five children felt as if the house were flying and Carrie had somehow gathered her brood together and shielded them behind a window curtain she kept tightly closed. The men on the beach were still slack-jawed when, as they stood immobile in shock, the Brushett house returned on another wave—intact, its curtains still pulled together, displaying Carrie’s usual neat housekeeping. Then, plop! The rush of seawater plunked it on the beach a hundred yards in front of them. Their chests heaved great sighs of relief when they heard Carrie’s cries for help and the wails of her youngest. Ben bolted and ran to the nearest house for a ladder; he knew the first floor would be full of frigid water and that they’d be on the second floor. The men had also watched the first great wave snatch the Kelly home. Vincent Kelly had built the white two-storey home for his bride, Frances, some fifteen years before. It was near the water on a rocky, exposed patch of land. Since then, the Kellys had had four children: Marion, who was thirteen in November, 1929; Curtis, twelve; Dorothy, and the smallest child, Elroy. Like many Burin Peninsula women, Frances kept chickens, eggs being a good source of protein and essential for the cakes that everyone looked forward to at Christmas and for their birthdays; she had six hens in her chicken house.

Like most men in the area, forty-five-year-old Vincent had done well in the shore fishery the past few years. The Kellys were able to buy eight gallons of molasses, which the children loved to spread on the bread their mother made every day. They also had twelve quintals of salt fish stored in their pantry, a barrel of flour, a hogshead of salt, and a quarter barrel of beef, a favourite meat that they didn’t get to eat too often. Alongside the house, Vincent had built a barn to store hay—he had plenty cut in 1929—for his few head of cattle in the winter, and the coal he’d got for the coming cold months.

With Vincent’s extra earnings from the successful shore fishery of the past few years, Frances had bought another Singer sewing machine. She had two now; one for her and one for her daughters, Marion and Dorothy. Already Marion was becoming an accomplished seamstress, while Dorothy was eagerly turning her hand to learning the skills from her mother and sister. She was working on pillow cases, a project that would allow her to master straight lines before she tackled more complicated tasks. She looked forward to making dresses like her mother did. Dorothy marvelled when she thought of how Frances had made her own wedding dress. Once in awhile, Frances took her daughters upstairs to her bedroom closet and released the dress from its wrapping and mothballs so that the girls could ooh and aah at it. Frances smiled at their wide eyes; she knew it gave them something to aim for.

Meanwhile, she made sure her family had the finest wardrobe in the harbour; nothing suited a lady better than lovely clothes, as her own mother had told her. Making them was an act of artistry. With the cottons, flannels, and even muslin she collected, she made fine clothes for her children and the sons and daughters of her neighbours in the cove. Little Marjorie Willis, five now, was christened in a white lace gown that Frances had sewn. Ben Hollett’s teenage daughters had long, full skirts that Frances made for them. The skirts made their debut at Lady Day in Oderin that August, when the whole bay, Catholic and Protestant alike, gathered to celebrate the feast of the Blessed Virgin Mary and share food, drink, laughter, and stories. Frances had made a Lady Day hat for Martha Cooper, another Kelly’s Cove teenager, who had confided to Frances her affection for one of the Oderin boys. Martha had gone into Path End, where she’d bought a straw hat; then Frances sewed layers of violet lace onto the brim. Frances made cotton shirts for the five children of her friend, Carrie Brushett, too; she knew Carrie had her hands full, and for the young son of her neighbours, the Footes. Thus, on Sunday, all the children of Kelly’s Cove wore something made by Frances Kelly.

Like Sarah Rennie in Lord’s Cove, Frances Kelly had been hard at work with her Singer sewing machine when she felt the rumbling of the earth beneath her. Her foot stopped its almost incessant action on the pedal and she looked up from the machine, fixing her eyes on the kitchen wall opposite. There she saw the kerosene lamp flicker wildly—she lit it at four o’clock every day—and dishes rattle manically. Then she heard the kettle on the stove jump. She creased her brow. She had never experienced anything like this before.

Dorothy had been running her yellow cotton pillow case through the girls’ sewing machine. She, too, stopped her work at the sudden eruption of noise and trembling.

“What’s that, Mommy?” she asked. She was more curious than afraid.

At first Frances said nothing. She tried to move her mouth but it was as if her tongue was weighed down by sand. She shook her head as if that would clear the odd sensation away. Then she opened her mouth as if to spit out the feeling of sand. “Pphhh!” she said and found some relief with the gesture. Then she turned to her daughter.

“I just don’t know what that strange thing is, child,” she said. She saw that Dorothy’s face was turning red, as if she were holding her breath. “But it can’t go on too much longer,” she added.

“No, Mommy,” Dorothy said. The little girl had stood up when the rumbling started but now she sat down at her sewing machine again. The red drained out of her face and she began to wait patiently, reassured by her mother’s words. As the two of them sat there, the dishes, cups and the kettle on the stove continued their odd little jig. The lamp flickered crazily but did not go out.

About five minutes later, the earth became still again. Dorothy and Frances said nothing but let out great gulps of air. It was awhile before they brought their hands back to the cloth and sewing machines.

Frances’ older daughter, Marion, was at another house in the village, writing a letter for an old lady who could not write but wanted to send a message to her sister in Boston. Marion wanted to go home when she felt the shock but she stayed put; she would finish the letter and then go—her parents had imbued a strong sense of duty in their children. After Marion signed the old lady’s name to the white sheet and folded it, she threw her coat over her shoulders and ran to the Kellys’ as if the wind were pushing her.