A TORRENT OF FLAME.
When the boat was properly secured, Uncle Phin, leaving Arthur to look
out for it, shouldered his axe and went in search of a birch tree.
Within half an hour he returned, bringing a great bundle of twigs and
the interesting information that there was a little boy and a little
girl up in the bushes picking blackberries.
“Oh, can’t I go up there and pick some too?” asked Arthur; “they would
be so good for dinner, and if I got enough you might make a pie, you
know.” He was fully in earnest, for he had such firm faith in Uncle
Phin’s culinary skill that he believed he could make anything good to
eat that anybody else could.
The old man only laughed at this, but said he might go if he wanted to;
and the boy, taking a tincup in which to hold the berries, ran off,
happily enough, to find the children. When he discovered them they were
both standing still, bashfully looking at him, the little girl, in a
pink sun-bonnet that reminded him of Cynthia’s, half hidden behind her
brother and evidently just ready to run away.
The new-comer at once opened conversation by saying: “How do you do? I
am very glad to see you, because I haven’t very many friends. My name is
Arthur Dale Dustin. What is yours?”
The boy said his was Bert and his sister’s was Sue, and that their other
name was Chapman. He added that their father was engineer of the pumping
station, and that nobody else lived anywhere near there.
Within five minutes they were thoroughly well acquainted, and were all
busily picking the luscious berries that abounded in that vicinity.
Arthur said it reminded him of a fairy story, and little Sue Chapman
said she loved fairy tales, only she had not heard very many. So Arthur
began to tell them the story of the “Mermaid,” which was one that he had
read to Cynthia; but he could not remember it very well, and said if
they would go down with him to where he lived he would read it to them
out of his book.
They readily agreed to this, and were so delighted with the queer
house-boat and all that they saw on it that it was some time before they
were ready to listen to the story of the mermaid. When it was finished
they said they must go home now, but invited Arthur to come up to the
house and see them after dinner.
That afternoon he met Mr. Chapman and Mrs. Chapman, and saw the great
pumping engine at work, and was allowed to climb up and look into one of
the large tanks that held thousands of barrels of oil, and had
altogether a most interesting and happy time. The best of all though was
playing with the dogs, of which there were three, a mother and two
half-grown pups, all thoroughbred bull terriers.
The boy enjoyed these so much, and was so fascinated with their
playfulness and intelligence, and Mr. Chapman took such a fancy to him,
that he told Bert and Sue they might make their new friend a present of
one of the pups if they wished.
As Arthur had never owned a real live pet in his life, this seemed a
most generous offer and he thanked the Chapmans warmly. They gave him
his choice of the two pups, and each showed so many good points that it
was a long time before he could make up his mind which to take. At
length he chose one that was brindled, and had a white tip to his tail.
His name was “Russet,” but as the young Chapmans called him “Rusty,”
Arthur decided that he would call him so too.
He carried the pup in his arms down to the boat; but all the way it
cried piteously at being taken from its home, and struggled hard to get
free. Arthur made a bed for it at the foot of his own bunk and tried to
feed it, but the pup refused to accept his kindness, and only cried and
whined and begged to be let out at one of the closed doors. Finally even
good-natured Uncle Phin lost his patience and said the pup needed a good
whipping to make him keep quiet.
“Oh, no, indeed, Uncle Phin!” exclaimed Arthur, reproachfully; “I
wouldn’t whip him for anything. How would you like to be whipped because
you cried at being taken away from your mamma? I’ve made up my mind that
I won’t make him unhappy any longer; and so, though I should love dearly
to keep him if he wanted to stay, I shall just carry him back to his
home.”
True to this resolve, the tender-hearted little fellow did carry poor
“Rusty” back up the hill, and was made even happier by witnessing the
extravagant joy of the pup and the mother dog at once more seeing each
other, than he had been by receiving the Chapmans’ gift.
They made him stay to supper, after which the whole family said they
would escort him down to the boat, of which Bert and Sue had talked so
much, that their parents were curious to see it. So, taking a lantern
with them, for it was growing dark, they started down the slope, at the
bottom of which they met Uncle Phin, just coming to look for his “lil
Marse,” at whose long absence he had grown anxious.
Mr. Chapman, who was much interested in this voyage of the old negro and
his young master, had brought down a small lamp and a gallon of oil for
it, as a present to them; for Arthur had told him that they had no light
on board. Mrs. Chapman brought a loaf of bread. Bert brought half a
dozen eggs laid by his own hen, and little Sue, who could think of
nothing else, brought a bunch of flowers from her own garden. They had a
very merry time over the presentation of these gifts, for each of which
Uncle Phin returned thanks in his own funny, earnest way.
When Arthur said he wished he had something to give in return for them
to remember him by, Mrs. Chapman said that if he would only read to them
one of the stories out of his fairy book that the children had told her
of, it would be one of the most acceptable presents he could make them.
This the boy was willing enough to do, and when the new lamp was lighted
and placed on the packing-box that served as a table, and they had all
found seats, he read to them the story of “Little Klaus” who made
bushels of money by everything that he undertook.
When he finished they all thanked him, and Bert said if he had a bushel
of money he would buy a pony. Little Sue said she would get a great big
doll, as big as a live baby, that could talk; and her mother said if
they only had money enough, they would live near a town where they could
have neighbors, and where the children could go to school. Mr. Chapman
said it would be very nice to have a bushel of money and a fine house,
but that they should be very thankful for the one they had, especially
when such a storm was coming up, as was about to burst over them at that
moment.
Sure enough it was thundering, and the guests of the evening had not
been gone from the Ark many minutes before great drops of rain began to
fall. Nearer and nearer swept the storm, and blacker and blacker grew
the night, until the awful glare of the lightning was almost continuous,
and the crash of the thunder was deafening. Silently, hand in hand, the
two occupants of the house-boat sat and watched it.
Suddenly there fell a blinding, dazzling ball of fire, accompanied by
such an awful burst of thunder as shook the solid earth. The next
instant the whole sky was lighted by a vast column of flame that seemed
to spring from the hillside directly above the place where the Ark lay
moored. One of the great oil tanks had been struck by the lightning, and
now a raging, roaring mass of flame shot up fifty feet into the air
above it, lighting the river and the whole storm-swept country for miles
around with its fierce, lurid glare. It was a grand but fearful sight,
and the boy clung closer to the old man, as he gazed upon it with an
eager fascination.
They could not at first understand the deep booming sounds that they
began to hear above the roar of the storm, soon after the fire broke
out, and which were repeated at regular intervals of a few minutes each.
Then Arthur remembered what Brace Barlow had told him about firing
cannon-balls into burning oil tanks, that the oil might run out through
the holes thus made, and the danger of an explosion be lessened. Mr.
Chapman was shooting at this tank with a small cannon that he kept on
hand for just such an emergency.
All at once the contents of the tank seemed to boil over. A fountain of
blazing oil burst from it and poured down its sides, the oil running
from the shot-holes near its base took fire, and in another instant a
fierce torrent of flame came rushing down the slope, directly toward the
little house-boat moored at its foot.
Poor Uncle Phin dropped on his knees in an agony of fear, crying: “O
Lawd! O de good Lawd, hab mussy on us, an deliber us frum de fiery
funness”; while to Arthur it seemed as though they were in most imminent
peril.