Butts County GaArchives News.....A FRIGHTFUL SCENE In which the editor of the Argus gets painfully burned March 1881 ************************************************ Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://www.usgwarchives.net/ga/gafiles.htm ************************************************ File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by: Don Bankston http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00024.html#0005864 March 5, 2004, 2:25 pm Middle Ga. Argus – Week of March 10, 1881 Another incident occurs which strengthens the argument that there is something in dreams. On Thursday night last Morgan Maddox who had his house burned a few weeks ago had a dream that fire broke out in the last room of the upper story of our dwelling and we were notified of the fact, then Mr. Maddox was so forcibly impressed of his dream that he believed it would actually occur, but we thought, but little of it, until Sunday night between the hours of 8 and 9 o’clock. Little “Mamie” who is about seven years old, was allowed to go with a small brass lamp “up stairs”, for the purpose of seeing her little brother (who is always afraid of the bugbears) to bed, and while the family with some visiting ladies was conversing around the fire-side they were startled by the screaming children who had allowed the blaze of the lamp to touch the combustible matter of an unfinished mattress, and upon rushing to the scene, our eyes rested upon a scene that almost paralyzed our hearts with fear. In the frightful glory of light stood the little ones almost enveloped in the flames that had reached the overhead ceiling, and not having the necessary forethought, so essential in an emergency, we grabbed the burning mass in our arms without throwing anything over the roaring flames, and in attempting to descend the stairway was so severely burned as to have to throw the whole mass down the steps thus scattering the fire all the way from where it first caught into the hall below, at this opportune time, Mrs. Smith with a remarkable presence of mind, threw a bed quilt over the largest flame, thus smothering it until all the smaller ones could be kicked down in the hall and out into the yard., without further loss than painful burns and while we write this the outside of the hands is almost a solid blister. It is a remarkable fact that Mr. Maddox heard the alarm in time to help extinguish the flames just as he had dreamed, and the fire caught in the identical room, and whether there is anything in dreams or not, we know this was a remarkable case and the screaming of the frightened children and squeaks of the terrified ladies commingling with the roaring and lurid flames made one of the most frightful scenes we ever witnessed. This file has been created by a form at http://www.poppet.org/gafiles/ File size: 2.8 Kb