The slow, soft breathing of 250 infirm old men and women asleep one night last week in the Pittsburgh dormitories of the Little Sisters of the Poor suddenly broke off into gags, coughs, smoke-stifled cries. Fire billowed up through the peaked roof of the Catholic home. Its glare lighted wrinkled faces twisted with fear and despair. Crippled old men thumped their canes on the floor for help. Aged women forgot their slippers and wrappers as the black-robed nuns herded them into a crawling, shuffling line down the rickety fire escapes. Querulous prayers...
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