FIRE!
It was a warm July night. The Camp lay quiet and serene, everybody
sound asleep. The heat of the day, which had been unusual for the
region, had brought out the spicy scent of the woods, and mingled it
with the salty fragrance which makes the essence of Maine. But into
the natural blend of outdoors came creeping another odor, not exactly
unpleasant, but very different; a stinging disquiet for which the
forest creatures have no name, only an instinctive fear. For it is no
friendly fragrance, but one that spells danger and death. It was the
smell of wood smoke.
The young men in their tents further south than Round Robin were the
first to get the tang. They turned over uneasily in their sleep. Then
Hugh sat up on his cot and sniffed. He was wide awake in a moment,
like a true soldier, and jumped out of bed. “Fire!” he thought. And
his first fear was that the hearth-blaze at Round Robin had caught
the bungalow. With dread at heart he hurried out of the tent and ran
up the path to his mother’s camp. But he soon saw that the smoke was
not coming from that direction. The slight wind was from the south,
and it brought with it a dense cloud of smoke, drifting through the
trees. The fire was not far away.
Meantime Victor had wakened and was pulling on his clothes, wondering
what had become of his tent-mate, and fearing the worst; when
Hugh returned to tell Victor what he had found out. “The camp’s
all right,” he said. “But there is a big fire somewhere in the
neighborhood; at the Harbor, I think.”
Dick’s tent was empty. But even while they were calling him he
came running in, all excitement. “It’s Idlewild!” he cried. “The
whole plant is burning. It’s a great show from the hill. Hurry up,
fellows!” And he was off again.
“We might do something to help,” said Victor catching up an axe. “Is
there a fire company, or anything?”
“There is a little hand-engine,” said Hugh. “But I doubt if it can do
much if the fire has got a good headway, since they have a long way
to come. Let’s hurry.”
“Oh, Hugh! What is it?” a girl’s voice interrupted him. It was Nancy,
disheveled, and dressed in a mackintosh. Behind her came Cicely with
a lantern. “We thought at first Round Robin was on fire,” she said
breathlessly. “Then we suspected you chaps had set the woods afire
down here. So we came to see. But it is further off, isn’t it? The
sky is all red. You can see it from the top windows of the bungalow.
Tante and the Twins are looking at it.”
“It is Idlewild burning,” said Hugh gravely. “We are going up to
help. You two run home and keep Anne from worrying, if you can.”
“Run home indeed!” retorted Nancy indignantly. “Don’t you suppose
we are going with you? We don’t see a fire every day. And if it’s
Idlewild----”
“Is it Idlewild?” at the word Anne appeared, breathless, with Beverly
behind her. They were both dressed, and both carried flash-lights.
And they were both very much excited.
“Goodness!” muttered Hugh. “This is no time for Round Robins to be
hopping around, in the middle of the night. I’m sorry, Anne. But you
ought to be glad that Idlewild is empty, anyway.”
“Yes,” said she, “even the pets are gone. I want to go and see the
last of it, if it is burning up.”
“Come along the road, then. It’s getting a little lighter, and
there’s still some moon.” Hugh and Victor took the girls in charge
and, hurried them as fast as they could toward the direction of the
fire.
Poor, splendid Idlewild! It was a pitiful sight, as all fires are,
when so much care and thought and labor and money go up in smoke. The
whole sky was lit up with a red glare, and columns of smoke were
pouring out of the roof of the house. Every little while there was a
crash as a wall fell, and a leap of flame would follow. The little
hand-engine from the Harbor was already there, and a band of stout
men were ready to help hand the water-buckets. But the water-works
at Idlewild were out of commission; the fire had caught in several
places and had made too much headway already. There was scarcely
anything that could be done, but try to prevent it from spreading to
the woods.
A crowd had gathered to see the fire. People were constantly
streaming up from the village in groups or singly, and they gossiped
excitedly among themselves, commenting on the fire and on recent
news. Victor and Hugh left the girls together near a group of women,
and ran to help with the buckets.
“There’s Reddy!” cried Nancy, pointing. Dick was flying around in the
smoke helping Captain Sackett and the other men remove the contents
of some of the smaller buildings. For it looked as if the whole plant
was doomed.
“The flames are coming out of my windows now!” said Anne to Beverly.
“All my pretty rooms burned up! I shall never see them again.” But
she did not feel as badly about it as she would have done two months
ago, had she known what was to happen. “It seems like the end of
everything,” she said. But Beverly answered:
“Oh no! Maybe it is only a beginning.” Beverly did not know just what
she meant; but it sounded comforting. And Anne seemed to like the
idea. A woman was speaking in a high voice just in front of her:
“They say it must have been set. It started in a dozen places at
once. Somebody hated him pretty bad.”
“I guess there was more’n one!” another woman spoke bitterly. “He
never done no good to this place. Just feathered his own nest, he
did.”
Were they talking about Anne’s father? Someone jostled her and she
lost Beverly in the crowd.
“How do you think the fire caught?” a summer cottager was asking the
question of a fisherman in tarpaulin and slickers who had fought the
fire till he was exhausted and now rested on the handle of his axe.
“Fire was sot,” said the man. “Cap’n Sackett’s got an old Indian
woman in charge. They caught her hangin’ around the place just after
the fire was discovered. Couldn’t say what she was up to. Cap’n
thinks she may have done it.”
“Sal Seguin!” thought Anne. “I don’t believe she did it.”
“Poole had enemies enough in this town. But I don’t know a feller
mean enough to do this trick,” said another man. “Look how they’re
all tryin’ to help now--some of the very ones he let in for a fraud!
There’s Doc. Right, and Lonny Maguire.”
“What does he mean?” thought Anne. “Fraud? Has someone been doing
something dishonest?”
“He was a mean cur,” said another fisherman, lounging up to this
group, and never noticing Anne crouching behind them. “I allers
thought so. Anybody who would drive his neighbors off land that had
allers been _free_--that ain’t American, I say. Well, we can walk
on it all we want after to-night, I guess. Poole will be walkin’
elsewhere!”
“Yes, they say he’ll have to go to prison for what he done,” said the
first man. “He took all my wife’s sister’s savings of twenty years.
And she’s a widder with five children!”
“He done me out of a thousand dollars,” growled another slouching
figure. “I’m glad his house is gone! I hated to see it here.”
“I guess Poole’s own children won’t starve,” said a woman’s shrill
voice. “He’ll take care of that!”
“How many’s he got?”
“Only two; a baby an’ that proud, stuck-up piece who used to ride
around last summer, don’t you know? They say she----”
“Oh, she ain’t so bad!” One of the women who had seen Anne dance
had interrupted. But Anne moved hastily away before she heard more.
She fancied one of the men was looking at her as if he recognized
Poole’s daughter. She stumbled along in the dark which was now
lighting into a grey dawn, thinking vaguely that she would find
Cap’n Sackett and ask him why he suspected Sal Seguin, and what
all these strange sayings meant. She passed behind the garage and
greenhouse, the vegetable garden all dry and weedy. Between her and
Idlewild was the little hollow containing the old spring-house and a
tomb-like structure of stone, built into the side of the hollow, that
was the ice-house and cellar. Anne remembered it as windowless and
mysterious, lined with sawdust--at least the part she knew. There was
another part that was kept locked and only Mr. Poole and the butler
held keys.
Anne was amazed to see the door of the ice-house open, and the ground
outside littered with something. She flashed her light. They were
jugs and bottles like those in the hut on the mountain. Somebody had
been putting them in--or taking them out?
More eager than ever to find Cap’n Sackett, Anne hurried on around
the burning building to the other side. It was a night full of
mystery and fear. Not until she clasped the great hand of Cap’n
Sackett, who was standing still for a moment watching the last
crumbling ruin of the front wall fall into ashes, did Anne feel safe.
“Why Anne, child!” cried the Cap’n looking down at her. “Where did
you come from? Hugh said you was safe with the other girls. You look
tired and hot. You’re tremblin’, honey!” He put an arm about her.
“Come right home with me. I’ll tell the boys you’ve gone.”
It was no use arguing. And indeed Anne had no mind to argue with the
Captain. It seemed so restful and safe to be under his wing, asking
no questions yet, hearing no explanations of all that puzzled her.
She gave a sigh, and allowed him to lead her by the hand as he used
to do when she was a little child, down the hill and across the field
to the white house in the Cove.
“Sakes alive!” cried Aunt Polly who like everybody else in the
neighborhood, including Nelly, was up and dressed. “If this ain’t
Anne!” She stared as if she saw a ghost.
“Yes, it’s Anne,” said the Captain quietly. “She’s all tired out and
excited. We got to put her to bed and let her sleep. It’s a long
time till mornin,’ Anne. It’ll be all right in the mornin’.”
For Anne had tried to ask him one question. He knew she had heard the
gossip. He saw she was confused with something she wanted to tell
him. But he only smoothed her hair and said she must go to bed. And
strangely enough, already Anne felt quieted and comforted, and ready
for sleep, in this house which no longer seemed strange to her, but
in the best sense, “homely.”
Aunt Polly took her upstairs to a little chamber adjoining Nelly’s.
Nelly was still out with the crowd on the hill, watching the last of
Idlewild. It was a dear little room, all furnished with pretty things
in perfect order, as if it had not been used for a long time. “It was
Anna’s room,” said Aunt Polly, softly moving about to get some of
Nelly’s things for Anne’s use, “the Captain’s daughter who died, you
know. It’s the guest room now. You ought to feel at home in it, Anne.
You have ’most the same name! Now you sleep sound till we wake you
up.”