Lo! where the engines, reeking hot,
Dashed up to the interesting spot:
Came Number Two, "The City's Hope,"
Propelled by a line of men and rope;
And after them, on a spiteful run,
"The Ocean Billows," or Number One.
And soon the two, induced to "play"
By a hundred hands, were working away,
Until, to the Deacon's flustered sight,
As he danced about in his robe of white,
It seemed as if, by the hand of Fate,
House-cleaning day were some two years late,
And with complete though late success,
Had just arrived by the night express.
The "Ocean Billows" were at high tide,
And flung their spray upon every side;
The "City's Hope" were in perfect trim,
Preventing aught like an interim;
And a "Hook-and-Ladder Company" came,
With hooks and ropes and a long hard name,
And with an iconoclastic frown
Were about to pull the whole thing down,
When some one raised the assuring shout,
"It's only the chimney a-burnin' out!"
Whereat, with a sense of injured trust,
The crowd went home in complete disgust.
Scarce one of those who, with joyous shout,
Assisted the Deacon in moving out,
Refrained from the homeward-flowing din,
To help the Deacon at moving in.
And that was the plight
In which, that night,
They left the Deacon, clad in white,
Who felt he was hardly treated right,
And used some words, in the flickering light,
Not orthodox in their purport quite--
Poor, put-out Deacon Tompkins!
[_From Arthur Selwyn's Note-book._]
Let me a moment indite
Scenes that I witnessed one night:
["YOU WILL TELL ME WHERE IS CONRAD?"]
"You will tell me where is Conrad?" said an old man, bent and gray,
While the flames were wildly dancing, and the walls were giving way.
"I haf heard some ones was buried--underneath the ruins fell;
He was in de topmost story--ach, mein Gott! I luf him well!
"I will tell you how you knew him: he had full and laughing eye,
And his face was smooth and smiling--and he was too young to die.
"Hair he had like clouds at sunset when anodher day is done,
And I luf him--how I luf him! and he is mein only son.
"Say, Policeman, tell me truly that this young man you did see,
And I all the money gif you, such as I could bring with me.
"Tell me that he anxious acted--that he hunted far and long,
Like as children would be calling for their fadher in a throng;
"Or he wounded was, pray tell me--in the hospital to lie?--
I will just now hasten to him, and I not will let him die!
"Tell me--oh, you must not told me--dead you haf my Conrad see?
Yet if so is I can stand that--I did long a soldier be.
"Only--Death, we do not fear him when we hear the bullets sing,
But to haf my boy killed this way is a rather different thing.
"Only--that his poor old mudher, she waits home all full of fear,
And I cannot there be going, till I take good news from here!
"Young he was when we did bring him from the Rhine land o'er the sea;
I did lif for her and Conrad--she did lif for him and me.
"Other ones we bring not with us: Gott he says, 'These more be mine;'
And we left them all a-sleeping 'mong the vineyards of the Rhine.
"He haf not a cross word gif us--he haf luf us every day,
And if he to-night comes home not, 'tis the first that he's away.
"Let me to that fire, Policeman! I care what for walls or brand?
Maybe he in there be living--reaching for his fadher's hand!
"Let me past, I say, Policeman! I haf work there to be done!
Let go me or I will strike you!--is it that you haf no son?"
* * * * *
Still the flames were like a furnace, and the walls were crashing loud,
And the old man, held in safety, fainted 'mid the trembling crowd.
And the mother watched and wondered, with her great eyes scarcely wet;
But, half dazed amid her sorrow, waits for Conrad even yet.