A Lost Hero by Elizabeth Stuart Phelps

On a sweltering South Carolina night, young Donny de Mone waits proudly at the Summerville station to welcome his father home, while the crowded platform hums with uneasy life and even the animals seem to sense danger. When a weary old Black man begs for food and shelter on his way to his dying daughter, Donny's kindness establishes the story's moral center: compassion, dignity, and quiet courage. Then the earth convulses in a devastating earthquake, hurling Donny to the ground and reducing the station to chaos and ruin. Left in darkness and shock, he remembers the old man's plea and the approaching train, and the story turns into a tense race against disaster. Joined by an old track-walker, Donny crosses the shattered landscape to warn the oncoming train before it reaches the twisted rails and station torpedoes. A gripping tale of self-sacrifice and human solidarity, it sets race, age, and class aside in a desperate moment of shared peril. This edition has been fully restored with modern typesetting, custom cover design.