Kyson Stowell, 11 months, is held by his grandmother, Kay Stowell, at a hospital Thursday in Nashville, Tenn. Kyson was found in a field about 100 yards away from his house after a storm went through Castalian Springs, Tenn.

Castalian Springs, Tenn. ? At first, rescuers thought it was a doll. Then it moved.

In a grassy pasture strewn with toys, splintered lumber and bricks tossed by the tornado’s widespread wrath, 11-month old Kyson Stowell was lying face down in the mud, 150 yards from where his home once stood.

“It looked like a baby doll,” said David Harmon, a firefighter who had already combed the field once looking for survivors. Then he checked for a pulse. “He was laying there motionless … and he took a breath of air and started crying.”

The field had already been combed for survivors, and finding anyone alive seemed improbable. Hours after the storm, there was devastation everywhere: The body of the boy’s mother was found in the same field, houses were wiped to concrete slabs and a brick post office was blown to bits. But except for a few scrapes, Kyson was fine.

At a makeshift shelter for storm victims at Hartsville Pike Church of Christ in Gallatin, the Rev. Doyle Farris said the child was a reminder that people “should never give up, even in the midst of the worst storm.”

“If you look, you can find an inspiration or a bright spot,” he said. “The child will always be a reminder in this community of that message.”

Kyson’s story emerged as a tale of hope amid spectacular misery as residents in Tennessee, Kentucky, Mississippi, Alabama and Arkansas tried to piece their lives back together after the nation’s deadliest twister rampage in two decades killed 59 people.

The extent of the damage was still being tallied Thursday, two days after the storms.

Federal and state emergency teams dashed into the hardest-hit areas, along with utility workers and insurance claims representatives. President Bush, who said he called the governors of the affected states to offer support, planned to visit Tennessee today.

Though homes were destroyed, communities flattened and loved ones lost, there were signs everywhere that recovery, while far away, was possible. Food and clothes began pouring in for the homeless. The morning coffee was brewing at a service station.

Charity efforts were beginning for those who lost their homes. A classroom inside the Pleasant Field Full Gospel Church building in Scottsville, Ky., was filled with bags of clothes and a nearby kitchen was stuffed with donated food, ready for residents displaced by the storm.

Many businesses were destroyed along Main Street in Gassville, Ark., but at the Citgo Mini-Mart, coffee was brewing.

“That’s been our main purpose in getting back up and running, to give people a bit of hope that things are getting back to normal,” manager Brandy Kingsolver said.