The Fire
JEAN, Bettie, Marjory and Mabel ran with the rest to see what was
happening, for their homes were not far from the schoolhouse. Indeed,
owing to its ample setting, the building was plainly visible from
all directions; and from a distance, it always loomed larger than
anything else in the town. To all the citizens it was a most unusual
and alarming sight to see thick, black smoke curling about the eaves
and rising in a threatening column above the familiar building. Such a
thing had never happened before.
Marjory was the first of the quartette to discover what was going on.
She had opened her bedroom window the better to count the strokes of
the fire-bell when, to her astonishment, she saw the fire itself or at
least the smoke thereof. Her first thought was of her three friends;
for of course no Cottager could view such a spectacle as this promised
to be without the companionship of the other three.
So Marjory flew around the block--like a little excited hen, Dr. Tucker
said--and collected the girls. They ran in a body to join the swelling
crowd that surrounded the smoking building.
"Keep back out of danger," called Aunty Jane, who was watching the fire
from her upstairs window.
"We will," shrieked Marjory, who, with the other three, was rushing by.
"Don't get mixed up with the hose," warned Dr. Tucker, who was carrying
young Peter to view the fire.
"We won't," promised Bettie. "We'll stand on the very safest corner."
"This is it," declared Jean, stopping short on the sidewalk. "We can
see right over the heads of the folks that are close to the building."
"Should you think," panted Mabel, hopefully, "that there'd be school
Monday?"
"Looks doubtful," said Marjory.
"Not upstairs, anyway," returned Jean. "Everything must be smoked
perfectly black. And it's getting worse every minute instead of better."
"Goodness!" cried Mabel, suddenly turning pale at a new and alarming
thought. "I do hope it won't burn _my_ room. The money for Miss
Bonner's birthday present is in my desk. It's--it's a horrible lot of
money to lose. I ought never to have left it there. Dear me! Do you
think----"
"Phew!" cried Jean, paying no heed to Mabel. "Look at that!"
"That" was a terrifying flash of red that suddenly illumined six of the
big upper windows.
"The High School room," groaned Bettie. "It's--it's _flames_!"
"Hang it!" growled an indignant tax-payer. "Why doesn't somebody _do_
something? That building cost fifty thousand dollars."
"Fire started from a defective flue on top floor," explained another
bystander, "but that's no reason why the whole place should go. There's
no fire downstairs, but there _will_ be--What's that? No water? Broken
hydrant?"
Mabel listened attentively. The bystander continued:
"Then the whole building is doomed. It's had time enough to get a
tremendous start."
"Oh, look!" cried Jean. "It's bursting through into the next room--_my_
room! Oh, how _dreadful_! All our plants, our books, our pictures--Oh,
oh! I can't bear to look."
Firemen and volunteer helpers were, hurrying in and out the wide
south door. Men carried out towering piles of books and tossed them
ruthlessly to the ground. Miss Bonner's big pink geranium was added to
the heap. The Janitor appeared with the big hall clock, that wouldn't
go at all on ordinary occasions but was now striking seven hundred and
twenty-seven--or something like that--all at one stretch. It seemed to
be crying out in alarm. The roar of flames could now be heard, likewise.
"Why!" exclaimed Jean, wheeling suddenly. "Where's Mabel? Wasn't she
right beside you a minute ago, Bettie? I certainly saw her there."
"She was--but she isn't now," returned Bettie, looking about anxiously.
"I thought she was behind me."
"Dear me!" murmured motherly Jean. "I hope she hasn't gone any closer.
Suppose the scallops on that roof should begin to melt off."
"Oh, look!" cried Marjory. "There! In the doorway!"
All three looked just in time to see a short, not-very-slender girl in
an unmistakable red cap dart in at the smoky doorway.
"Oh," groaned Jean, "it's Mabel!"
"Oh," moaned Marjory, "why did I ever tell her that there was a fire?"
"I'm afraid," hazarded Bettie, "that she's gone to Miss Bonner's room
to get that money."
Bettie was right. That was exactly what Mabel had done.
All along Mabel's way hands had stretched out to stop the flying
figure. But the hands were always just a little too late. You see, the
owners of the tardy hands did not realize quickly enough that rash
little Mabel actually meant to enter a building whose top floor was
all in flames. She was fairly inside before the onlookers grasped the
situation.
"How perfectly foolish!" cried Marjory, stamping her foot in helpless
rage. "Of course somebody'll get her out--there's two men going in
now--but how perfectly silly for her to go in at all!"
Mabel, however, was not feeling at all foolish. No, indeed. The little
girl, to her own way of thinking, was doing a worthy, even a heroic,
deed. She was rescuing the precious two dollars and forty-seven
cents that her class had so laboriously raised to buy Miss Bonner
a birthday gift. She would have liked to accomplish it in a little
less spectacular manner, but, no other way being available, she had
made the best of circumstances and was ignoring the crowd. She hoped,
indeed, that no one had noticed her; with so much else to look at it
seemed as if one small girl might easily remain unobserved. To be sure
she was risking her life, the life of the only little girl that her
parents possessed; but that seemed a small affair beside two dollars
and forty-seven cents. The roof might fall, the cornice might drop, the
huge chimney might collapse, the suffocating smoke or scorching flames
might suddenly pour into that still unburned lower room. Let them!
Heroes never stopped for such trifles with such a sum at stake.
By this time, Jean, Marjory and Bettie were white and absolutely
speechless with fear. Four firemen were sitting on Dr. Bennett to keep
him from rushing in after the little girl he had promptly recognized as
his own, and five women were supporting and encouraging Mrs. Bennett,
who had grown too weak to stand although she still had her wits about
her.
"Fifty dollars reward," Mr. Black was shouting, "to the man that gets
that child!"
He would have gone after her himself, but Mrs. Crane had him firmly by
the coat-tails and both Dr. and Mrs. Tucker were clinging to his arms.
"Be aisy, be aisy," Mrs. Malony, the egg-woman was murmuring to the
world in general. "Miss Mabel's the kind thot's always escapin' jist be
the skin av her teeth. Rest aisy. Thim fire-laddies'll be havin' her
out av thot dure in another jiffy."
But, although the crowd rested as "aisy" as it could, the moments went
by and no Mabel appeared.
With every instant the fire grew worse. By this time, the smoke and
angry sheets of flame had burst through the roof and were streaming,
with a mighty, threatening roar, straight up into the blackened sky--a
splendid sight that was visible for a long distance. There was no water
to check the mighty fire, for, a very few moments after the hose had
been attached, the hydrant had burst and the water that should have
been busy quenching the fire was quietly drenching the feet of many an
unheeding bystander.
And presently the thing that everybody expected happened. With a
lingering, horrible crash a large part of the upper floor dropped to
the main hall below. Smoke poured from the lower doors and windows.
In another moment leaping hungry flames were visible in every room
except the basement. The entire superstructure seemed now just like a
gigantic, topless furnace; and of course it was no longer possible for
even the firemen to venture inside.
But _where_ was Mabel?