THE NIGHT ALARM
At first the light was so hazy in her mother's bedroom that Carolyn
May was not sure she was in bed. And when the little girl did see her,
Mamma Cameron lay so still that she was the more frightened.
Carolyn remembered how the pale lady looked that time she fainted in
her hot little apartment. Mamma Cameron lay just as still in the bed,
one bare arm outside the covering, her face strangely buried in the
pillow. The room was filled with a choking, yellowish vapour.
The child seized her mother's shoulder suddenly--desperately--and with
both hands tried to shake her. The woman's body lay limp and seemingly
lifeless. The gasping cry of the terrified little girl did not arouse
her in the least. She made no sound, nor did she move!
"Oh! Oh!" choked Carolyn. "Princey, something awful's happened to
mamma!"
She stumbled to the nearest window. It was open barely a crack at the
bottom; but the sash was easily raised, even by the child's failing
strength. A rush of cool, salt air swept into Carolyn's face. It
revived her, for the little girl herself had been almost overcome by
the stifling vapour.
Prince got his forepaws on the windowsill, sniffed the breeze, and
uttered a short, enquiring bark.
"Hush! You mustn't, Prince," commanded the child, remembering the
necessity for keeping the dog quiet at night in the hotel room.
Then she turned abruptly from the window. She must get help for mamma.
Something bad had happened, and Carolyn's thoughts turned to the
doctor, who she knew was staying in the Truefelt House.
She knew where his office was--at the other end of the house, on this
same floor, and around the front stairwell in a side corridor. He was a
very nice man, Doctor Warren, so thought Carolyn.
She had reached the door into the hall by this time and was fumbling
with the key and bolt. It did not seem so hard to breathe now. Prince
was coughing softly right behind her.
When the door opened, quite suddenly, Carolyn almost screamed aloud.
But the necessity for closing her mouth and eyes instantly stifled her
involuntary cry. The hotel corridor was filled with yellow smoke!
There had been a squall from the east before midnight, and somebody had
shut the hall windows against the beating rain. The middle of the house
thereby was made a closed compartment when the first floor doors were
shut, and the smoke was so thick that the little girl was very much
terrified.
She dropped to the floor. Prince crouched with her and coughed.
"Princey," she choked, admonishingly, "if you don't stop you'll wake up
everybody in the house."
The open window across mamma's room created a draught that sucked the
smoke out of the corridor. And it was not so thick near the floor. On
her hands and knees Carolyn May could breathe with much greater ease.
She crept out of the room under the rolling cloud of smoke, and moved
on all fours along the cocoa-runner through the middle of the hall.
There were two lamps burning here; but they were turned low, anyway,
and gave little light. The yellow murk caused by the smoke made every
object appear queer.
Although the draught through Mrs. Cameron's room began at once to clear
the smoke out of the corridor, more was rolling up the open stairway.
From below Carolyn heard a strange crackling sound. There was a growing
light down there, too.
But the child did not at all understand it. She was thinking mainly
of Mamma Cameron and that she must get the doctor to her as soon as
possible.
The dog crept close after her as she scrambled over the cocoa-matting.
He hung his muzzle near the floor. Instinct told Prince that the yellow
cloud which rolled above them was not good to breathe.
Left to himself the dog surely would have howled and barked to betray
his fear. But he was usually obedient to his little mistress's word,
and Carolyn had warned him to keep silence.
Her tender little feet and knees were scratched by the harsh matting.
She could see but a little way through the murk. But she scrambled
along just as bravely, and just as fast, as she could.
Soon she rounded the stairwell and found the side corridor into which
the doctor's office opened. All these rooms on either hand were
occupied; but nobody in the hotel save herself and Prince seemed to
have been aroused.
In this side hall the stifling smoke was not so thick. There was a
window at the end and it was open at the top. Therefore some fresh air
was being sucked in from outside.
Carolyn May had no thought for these things; merely the difficulty of
breathing troubled the child.
Here was the doctor's door. She could not mistake it, for he had a
little sign on it: "E. Warren, M.D." She knew that those two letters at
the end stood for "medical doctor;" although Johnny O'Harrity, the lame
boy at home, had once told her they stood for "More Drugs."
The little girl, panting and sobbing, stood up against the door and
began to batter upon it with both plump fists.
"Doctor Warren! Doctor Warren! Please, _please_, Doctor Warren, open
the door!"
Her cry was not very loud, nor did her fists make any great noise; but
the physician was used to calls in the night. Or perhaps he, too, was
troubled in his sleep by the growing volume of smoke from below stairs
which was, by now, penetrating the rooms even as far from the kitchen
as this.
"What's the matter? Great Scott! where's all the smoke from?" demanded
Dr. Warren, appearing in his robe and slippers, and forgetting to
remove the tasselled nightcap from his bald head, which during the day
and in public was usually covered by a brown toupé.
He saw the little girl and her dog almost under his feet.
"What do you want, child? Why, it's little Carolyn May!" for there was
scarcely a person about the hotel who did not know her.
"Oh, Dr. Warren! Come to mamma! Please come to mamma!"
"What's all the smoke about? Where's the fire?" cried the doctor.
"What's the matter with your mother, child?"
"She won't speak to me. I can't wake her up," and Carolyn burst into
frightened sobs.
"My goodness, child!" The doctor was already at the corner of the
corridor. He saw the main hall full of swirling smoke while from
below the crackling of flames was unmistakable. To Carolyn's shocked
amazement the physician began to shout:
"Fire! Fire! Fire!"
"Why--why, Dr. Warren!" choked Carolyn May. "You'll wake everybody up
in the house."
Prince, encouraged by the physician's outbreak, began barking and
running up and down the hall. Immediately there were sounds indicating
that some, at least, of the hotel guests were aroused. Two or three
doors were opened and the occupants of the rooms, in greater or less
dishabille, showed themselves anxious to know what the cries meant.
The clouds of smoke swirling about in the hall told the story
immediately, for it set everybody to coughing. Much as he must have
been anxious regarding his own possessions, Dr. Warren first ran to
Mrs. Cameron's room, with Carolyn and Prince close behind him. The
atmosphere in that chamber had cleared somewhat, but Carolyn's mother
was not aroused.
The physician used drastic measures in this case. He seized the water
pitcher and drenched Mrs. Cameron's pillow with its contents as he
dashed the water into her face.
"Oh!" shrieked Carolyn. "You--you've drown-ded her!"
Her mother awoke, sputtering and gasping. The doctor was now shaking
her energetically by the shoulder.
"Get up and dress! The hotel is in flames, Mrs. Cameron! Look out for
your child!"
"Oh, Carolyn! Carolyn!" cried the frightened woman, as the excited
doctor dashed from the room.
"I'm here! I'm here, Mamma!" Carolyn assured her. "Me and Prince are
both here."
Mr. Ben Truefelt, in his shirt and trousers, appeared for a moment at
the door.
"All right, Mrs. Cameron," he said cheerfully. "There's time for you to
dress and throw your things into your trunk. The fire is confined to
the kitchen ell and the cellar under it. I don't think we shall have to
get out of the main building. But it is best to pack your things and be
on the safe side."
He disappeared. They heard a great deal of shouting outside. Some kind
of fire apparatus had arrived, and a great crowd of the neighbours and
people from other hotels.
Mrs. Cameron, once she was awake, and despite the effects of the smoke,
which she still felt, was eminently practical. When she and Carolyn
were dressed she did not hurry out of the room, panic-stricken. She
followed Mr. Ben's advice and packed her trunks and locked them.
Then she took Carolyn by the hand and they started for the main
stairway, followed by Prince. Most of the other guests had already got
out of the hotel--some of them in rather light attire.
The doors and windows having been opened on the first floor, the hall
and stairway were relieved of most of the smoke. But the fire was still
being fought in the rear premises.
When Carolyn and her mother came forth they were hailed by many of
their acquaintances.
"Oh, isn't this terrible, Mrs. Cameron?" said one nervous woman. "That
such a catastrophe should happen to us here!"
"It truly is a serious affair; but it might have been much worse," said
the little girl's mother.
"We might have been smothered in our beds," agreed another guest. "A
fire is an awful thing."
"But," cried Carolyn May, almost plaintively, "I didn't see any fire.
Why! that fire that burned up the woods at Uncle Joe Stagg's house just
flamed right up and burned _everything_."
"I am glad this is not that kind of fire," her mother said quickly.
Just then Dr. Warren came out, staggering under the weight of two great
bags.
"I thought I'd better make sure of my drugstore, anyway," he said. "No
knowing when you folks will need my services. How do you feel now,
Mrs. Cameron?"
"Not very sprightly," she told him. "I believe I must have been almost
asphyxiated."
"I believe you!" he agreed. "And here," the doctor added, patting
Carolyn's shoulder, "is the little girl who perhaps saved more of us
from the same fate. She came pounding at my door to tell me her mamma
was sick, in just the nick of time."
Everybody had to hear the story then of the rousing of the doctor by
Carolyn and Prince. They praised her so much that the little girl felt
uncomfortable, although like most children, Carolyn May could absorb a
vast amount of praise.
The larger crowd was around at the back of the hotel, and she and
Prince ran there to watch the fight against the fire. It had originated
in the cellar. The dynamo room was gutted and the electric plant put
out of commission. The flames, too, had swept the kitchen and pantries.
In the rooms above the kitchen, the help slept. Even Captain
Littlefield had a room here which he occupied during the season, for
his services were needed both early and late.
The wooden-legged man was now greatly excited. He was stumping about,
talking loudly and mopping his brow with a bandanna. Somebody caught
him by the sleeve and stayed his steps.
"Why, Ozy! you act like you warn't all here."
"You'm right. I ain't all here," declared Captain Littlefield. "My
Sunday-go-to-meeting laig is up there in that dratted room, burnin' up
so fur as I know."