One morning Bruce Decker stood leaning on the chain stretched across the
entrance to the quarters, wondering how soon he would be allowed to go
to fires with the men. Ever since his arrival in New York it had been
his highest ambition to climb up on the truck when the alarm sounded,
and be off to the scene of action. But much as he desired to bear his
share in the work of the company, he had never dared broach the subject
to his superiors. To begin with, the rigid discipline of the department
and the unhesitating, unquestioning way in which the men obeyed the
orders of their superiors, had made a deep impression on the young
country boy, and besides, he was eager to have them all believe that he
was a sober, cool-headed, trustworthy person rather than a flighty boy,
carried away with the idea of an exciting and adventurous fireman’s
life.
The company went out on an average about twice a day, and while the men
were away Bruce remained in the quarters, sometimes engaged in some
light work about the place, and sometimes reading or studying. He was
always on hand to help bed down the horses on their return, and to find
out from the men where the fire had been. Sometimes the company returned
in less than an hour, sometimes they were gone more than two hours, and
once they had remained out all night, while Bruce sat by the open door
wondering fearfully what had become of them.
To-day, as he stood leaning on the iron chain, he determined to ask from
the chief permission to go out at the next alarm, and he had just
reached this conclusion when his thoughts were interrupted by the
familiar voice of his superior.
“Bruce,” said the chief, “I want you to take this letter up to Mr.
Dewsnap on Madison avenue, and get an answer to it. Be sure you see him,
and if he is not at home, wait till he does come in.”
Glad of an excuse to get out into the streets, for it was a pleasant
warm day, Bruce bent his steps towards the address indicated on the
envelope which he carried in his hand. A man servant answered his ring
and ushered him into the large and rather gloomy library, in which sat
Mr. Peter Dewsnap, one of the eccentric characters of New York, and a
particular friend of Chief Trask’s. Mr. Dewsnap was a short and rather
stout gentleman, with bright, clear eyes, snow-white whiskers and a
decidedly jovial aspect. He smiled pleasantly as he took the letter, and
then asked the boy to sit down, remarking at the same time, “You’re not
one of the chief’s sons are you?”
“No, sir,” replied Bruce, rather proudly, “I’m a member of his company.”
“A member of the fire company!” exclaimed Mr. Dewsnap, “Well, you must
have joined very lately, and in fact I didn’t know that there were any
lads as young as you in the whole department.”
“I’ve only been there a very short time, sir,” replied the boy,
respectfully, “but my father was a member of this company until his
death, about four months ago.”
“You don’t mean to say that you are a son of Frank Decker, who was
killed at that big apartment house fire?” cried Mr. Dewsnap, and then
added, as he scanned the boy’s face more carefully, “yes, the same eyes
and the same square look in them. I knew your father very well, young
man, and I’m glad to see you. Did you never hear your father speak of
me?”
And just then a sudden remembrance of what his father had told him lit
up the boy’s mind, and he exclaimed hastily, and without thinking of
what he was saying: “Why, you’re not the gentleman they used to call the
old fire crank, are you?”
He stopped suddenly, as soon as the words were out of his mouth,
realizing that he had addressed the old gentleman in a too familiar way.
But the latter did not seem to be offended. On the contrary, he threw
himself back in his chair, uttering roars of laughter and slapping his
knees with his hand: “That’s what I am, and that’s just what your father
used to call me,” he cried, “I’m an old fire crank, and have been ever
since I was your age, and that’s fifty years ago. There was no paid
department then, with all its new fangled inventions for getting out in
less than no time, but we had a volunteer department, and I belonged to
it. You boys of the present generation can’t form any idea of what New
York was like when I was your age. You’ve not been in the city long,
have you?”
“No, sir,” replied Bruce simply, “I was brought up in the country, and
never saw New York until a fortnight ago.”
“I thought I saw some of the country tan on your face,” rejoined the old
gentleman. “Well, you see how thick the houses are around here on
Madison avenue near Fortieth street, this is about where I used to pick
blackberries when I was a lad. The city was a good ways off then, and
they used to ring a big bell when there was a fire. Some of the best men
in the town were firemen, and some of the toughest citizens as well.
They had nothing but hand engines then, but there was just as sharp a
race to get to the fire and get a stream on in those days as there is
to-day. And many’s the fight I’ve seen between the rival companies. They
used to call us toughs and rowdies, but there wasn’t so much of that
after the Fire Zouaves were recruited and sent to the front in the early
days of the war. They showed then, that their experience in fighting had
taught them something that was of some use to their country, and there
were no such soldiers, either on our side or with the Confederates, as
the boys in the red trousers and gaiters that went South with Ellsworth
and Duryea. However, I can talk all night when I get started on that
subject. Some afternoon I’ll have Chief Trask bring you up here and I’ll
show you some old souvenirs of the volunteer department that I’ve got,
and tell you some stories of Big Six and the Black Joke, and half a
dozen more of the famous old-time organizations. Since I retired from
business ten years ago, I’ve become more of a fire crank, as they call
it, than I was before the war. By the way, if the chief is down at the
quarters now, I’ll step down and see him.”
“He was there when I left,” said Bruce, “and told me to bring him an
answer to his letter.”
“Very well, you can bring me down there as an answer,” said the jolly
old gentleman, as he put on his hat, took his gold-headed cane from
behind the door and ushered his young guest into the hall with
punctilious, old-fashioned courtesy. They walked together down the broad
avenue, Mr. Dewsnap pausing occasionally to point out to his young
companion some building of historic interest, or the scene of some great
conflagration. They had just reached the Fifth Avenue Hotel, and Mr.
Dewsnap was telling Bruce about the circus which used to occupy the
present site of the house, when a sharp clang of a gong fell upon their
ears, and they saw Captain Murphy’s steam engine thundering along
Twenty-third street, while Chief Trask in his wagon came up Broadway at
full gallop, closely followed by the hook and ladder truck, with Charlie
Weyman in the driver’s seat, Brophy at the tiller, and the men, some of
whom were still struggling with their coats, clinging to the truck as
best they could.
In an instant the old gentleman’s face changed, and his eyes seemed to
blaze with excitement.
“Come with me!” he exclaimed, as he darted after the flying vehicles. Up
Broadway he went, with Bruce in swift pursuit, then turning into
Twenty-fifth street, he followed on to Sixth avenue, arriving just as
Captain Murphy had his hose attached to the hydrant and was ready to
throw a stream wherever it might be needed. A crowd had collected in
front of a building from whose upper window a volume of smoke issued.
Chief Trask was standing on the sidewalk giving order to his men, and
just as they appeared on the scene, one of the men from the engine
company entered the hallway with a nozzle of the hose in his hand and
disappeared upstairs, while a ladder from the truck was placed against
the side of the building, and a fireman ran hastily up to see that there
were no people imprisoned in the upper story.
But the fire proved a very slight one, and within a very few minutes the
smoke had ceased to issue from the upper window, the hose had been
replaced in the tender and the long ladder on the truck. And it was just
at this moment that Chief Trask recognized Mr. Dewsnap and came forward,
holding out his hand and saying: “I just sent a note up to your house,
and you’ll probably find it there when you get back. If I’d known we
were to get a call from this box, I wouldn’t have sent it, but would
have taken my chances of seeing you here. You very seldom miss a fire
that’s anywhere within your radius.”
“I got your note, and was just going down with that boy of yours to see
you, when we met you coming up,” rejoined the old gentleman, “and so we
concluded we’d follow you along and take in the fire, too. I’m very much
obliged to you for your kind offer, and you may expect to see me with
those gentlemen within a few days. I’ve told them both about the way we
do things in the New York department, but I don’t think they believe it.
Now I want to prove it to them because I am getting rather tired of the
way some of these foreigners pretend to look down on us Americans.”
“Very well,” rejoined Chief Trask, “bring them down any time you feel
like it, and you’ll find us ready. You needn’t take the trouble to
notify me when you’re coming, except that I’d like to be there myself.
If my men don’t get the truck out into the street in ten seconds, I want
to know the reason why every time.”
“I want you to come up and call on me some afternoon,” said Mr. Dewsnap
to Bruce, as the boy turned to go back with the men on the truck. “I’ve
got a number of books relating to the fire department and some
curiosities that ought to interest a boy of your age and inclinations.
You’ll find me at home any afternoon between two and four, and I’m sure
Chief Trask will give you permission to come.”
Then, with a pleasant smile and nod, the old gentleman climbed into the
chief’s wagon, while Bruce scrambled up over the wheel of the big truck
and rolled slowly back to quarters.