The Rising of the Tide: The Story of Sabinsport
Ida M. Tarbell
Paperback
(CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, July 31, 2014)
Excerpt: ...of the press were publishing; the Woman's Club had engaged a lecturer to tell it what he knew of Serbia; a subscription had been started, and in the alley on the South Side Jimmy Flannigan's goat had been harnessed to Benny Katz' two-wheeled cart, and Reuben Cowder, coming through as usual, found the gang in white paper caps, marked with a crayon red cross, receiving Nick Brown who, limp and groaning, was impersonating Nikola Petrovitch s first appearance at the Valievo sanitarium. Here again it was Jimmy Flannigan's big brother who, listening to Patsy at high school, had inspired the play. The keenest interest was taken in Reuben Cowder's trip—for of course he was going. He was settling things for as long an absence as necessary, doing it feverishly, joyfully—he who had always stuck night and day at his post and grumbled at every business trip that he could not escape. He would be ready to start as soon as the cablegram came; Nancy had said early in October. But October came. The first week passed—and no cablegram. The second week, and none. And then there fell on Reuben Cowder with crushing force the news of the second invasion of Serbia. From north and west came the Austro-Hungarians—from the west the Bulgars—hordes of them. This time there was to be no mistake. Serbia was not merely to be conquered; she was to be crushed, and the remnants swept into the sea. The suddenness, the mass, the extent of the attack, left no doubt in Reuben Cowder's mind that whatever Serbia's fate might be—and that was as nothing to him—Nancy had been trapped. Unless she had reached Salonika before the advance, she'd have hardly a shadow of a chance. And he told himself, too, that if she saw need, she would not leave…