THE INVITATION
"Oh, ho! So you know me then, do you?" cried the man who had so
suddenly and unexpectedly appeared and offered to climb to the roof of
the house where the chimney was on fire.
"Yes, I know you by your picture," answered Mrs. Bunker. "But I never
expected to see you so soon. Where did you come from?"
"No time to talk now--excuse me--got to hustle as I did in the army in
France!" was the answer. "I'll tell you all about it later. Now, if
you'll get me a clothesline, I'll climb to the roof and put out the
chimney fire!"
"You can't put out a fire with a clothesline, can you?" asked Violet.
"Don't you need a hose?"
"Yes, little girl. I don't know what your name is, but I'll find out
later," said the man who had been called "Captain Ben" by Mrs. Bunker.
"What I want the clothesline for is to carry it up to the roof with me.
I can't take a hose, but I can tie the rope around my waist, climb up,
and then the fireman can tie the end of the hose to the line. Then I
can haul up the hose, the fireman can turn on the water, I'll squirt
the water down the blazing chimney, and the fire will soon be out."
"Oh!" exclaimed Vi. She very seldom had such a long answer given to any
of the questions she asked. "Oh," she said again.
"Where's a clothesline?" cried Captain Ben.
"I'll get you one," offered Norah, and she rushed around to the side
yard, coming back in a few seconds with a long, trailing length of line
she had cut from the posts. Meanwhile more and more black smoke was
coming from the chimney, and some was drifting out of the attic window
Russ had opened.
"Good! Thank you!" exclaimed Captain Ben.
"Do you think the house is catching fire?" asked Mrs. Bunker of the
chief of the department, who came up on the porch just then.
"Not yet; but it may soon," he answered. "What are we going to do?" he
went on. "We have no ladder to get to the roof, and----"
"This gentlemen is going to climb up to the roof for us," interrupted
the fireman who had been talking to Mrs. Bunker. He pointed to Captain
Ben, who was making some loops in the clothesline that Norah had
brought him.
"How's he going to get to the top of the high roof of this house when
we can't get up ourselves without long ladders?" asked the fire chief.
"And our long ladder is broken. How are you going to get up, if I may
ask?" he inquired of Captain Ben.
"You don't need to ask one of Uncle Sam's soldier-sailors a question
like that," was the answer. "I was one of the marines in the late war,
and doing hard things is just what the marines like. I'll show you how
I'm going to get up to the roof without a ladder. Be ready to bend on
the hose when I give the word."
"We'll be all ready," the fire chief promised. "I'm ashamed of our
department for not being able to put out a simple chimney fire before
this, but I didn't know our long ladder was broken. That makes all the
trouble."
"The trouble will soon be over when I get up there!" declared the
young soldier with a look at Russ, Rose, and the other little Bunkers.
They all wondered who he was and how it was their mother knew him from
having seen his picture. Not even Russ, the oldest, remembered any
relative named Captain Ben.
"Now we're all ready!" exclaimed the former marine, as he had called
himself. "We'll have this fire out in no time!"
He seemed to know just what to do, and even the fire chief was waiting
for Captain Ben. With the clothesline tied around his shoulders in a
knot that could quickly be loosed, the stranger ran to a large copper
rain pipe fastened to the side of the house. Near the rain pipe, or
leader, as it is called, was also a lightning rod, and there was a
strong ivy vine growing and climbing up a wire trellis which was nailed
on the wall of the house.
"Up I go!" cried Captain Ben, and in another moment he was going up the
side of the house, climbing hand over hand by means of the lightning
rod, the copper leader, and the vine. None of these, alone, would have
been strong enough to have held him, but by using all three together
the soldier-sailor managed to get up to the roof.
The roof of the Bunker house, where the blazing chimney came through,
was a peaked one, though it was not of a very steep slant. Russ
wondered how Captain Ben was going to climb this peak, which was like
a hill, only covered with shingles. But the sailor had on low shoes
with rubber soles, and these did not let him slip. Stooping down, and
helping himself along with his hands when he reached the roof, Captain
Ben made his way close to the chimney.
From it now could be seen coming flames and sparks as well as smoke,
and it began to look as though the whole house might soon be ablaze.
"Fasten on the hose!" suddenly called Captain Ben.
On the ground below firemen made fast to the lower end of the
clothesline the length of hose from which the water had been turned off.
"If their hose isn't enough I'll let 'em have mine," said Jerry Simms,
who now had the water turned full on in the garden line. And he was so
excited that, before he knew it, he had sent a shower of spray up on
the porch.
"Mind what you're doing, Jerry!" called Norah. "Be easy now!"
"Oh, excuse me!" begged the old soldier. "I'm so excited I don't know
at all what I'm doing!"
He turned the hose aside, but this time he sprayed the fire chief and
one of his men. But as they had on rubber coats and rubber boots, as
well as thick helmets, they did not mind the water in the least and
only laughed.
By this time other firemen had fastened an empty line of hose to the
end of the clothesline. The other end of the rope was held by Captain
Ben on the roof of the Bunker home, and now he began hauling up.
"I have it!" he cried as he reached the nozzle, and took off the
clothesline. "Wait until I get close to the chimney, and then turn on
the water."
"All right!" the chief answered.
Captain Ben, in his rubber-soled shoes that did not slip on the shingle
roof, crawled over until he was close to the blazing chimney. It was
low enough for him to point the hose right down in it, and when he had
done this he shouted:
"Turn on the water!"
"Turn on the water!" echoed the chief. The hose, that was almost like
a big snake trying to climb up the side of the house of the six little
Bunkers, straightened out and twisted as the water filled it, being
pumped in by one of the engines.
Captain Ben directed the stream down the blazing chimney. There were
puffs of steam, the white clouds of which mingled with the black smoke
of the chimney, and the water poured down into the kitchen, spurting
out of the range where the fire had been built. The water put out the
fire in the stove, as well as the fire in the chimney, and made muddy
puddles on Norah's kitchen floor. But this could not be helped. It was
better to have a little water in the house than a lot of fire.
"How are you making out?" the chief called up to Captain Ben on the
roof.
"Fine!" was the answer. "The fire is almost out!"
And it was all out a minute or two later. Then the water was shut off,
so that the house would not be flooded, and Captain Ben dropped the
hose from the roof down to the ground.
"Is he going to jump down, Mother?" asked Vi, who, with the others of
the family, stood in the side yard, where they could all get a view of
the roof on which stood Captain Ben.
"No, indeed, he will not jump down!" said Mrs. Bunker.
"I guess he'll climb down the same way he went up--like a monkey," said
Laddie. "He's a good climber. Some day I'm going to climb up to the
roof like Captain Ben did. But who is he, Mother? Is he what Uncle Fred
is to us?"
"Not exactly," was the answer. "I'll tell you about Captain Ben a
little later when there isn't so much excitement. He is coming down
now, and I must thank him for what he did."
"I want to thank him, too," said the fire chief. "I'd never have
thought of getting to the roof that way. But it's a good thing he did,
or that chimney might be burning yet."
Captain Ben made his way down the vine, the lightning rod, and the
copper pipe as he had gone up. Several in the crowd gathered about
him, and many told him he had done just the right thing. But Captain
Ben paid little attention to these strangers. He made his way to where
Mrs. Bunker stood with the six little Bunkers gathered about her.
"I didn't expect my visit would have so much excitement connected with
it," he said, with a smile, as he put on his coat. "But I arrived just
about the same time as did the engines. I saw what the trouble was, and
decided that was the best way to help."
"I am glad you did," remarked Mrs. Bunker. "Though I have not seen you
for several years, I knew you at once by your picture, which I recently
saw in the paper. You evidently got safely back from the war."
"Yes, I got nothing worse than a few scratches. But, unless I am much
mistaken, here comes Mr. Bunker."
"Oh, here's Daddy!" cried Rose, as a very much excited man rushed up
the front walk, pushing his way in among the throng that had been
attracted by the alarm of fire.
"Are you all right? Is anyone hurt? How did it happen? Is the fire
out?" asked Daddy Bunker, and, really, he asked almost as many
questions as Violet would have done had she had the chance.
"Yes, we are all safe!" answered Mrs. Bunker. "No one hurt and very
little damage done. But I have a surprise for you! Look!" and she
stepped from in front of the marine who had put out the blazing chimney.
"Captain Ben!" cried Daddy Bunker. "Where in the world did you come
from?"
"Just back from the war," was the answer, as Captain Ben shook hands
with Daddy Bunker. "I'm going to take a long rest, and I came to bring
an invitation to you--to you and the six little Bunkers," he went on,
looking from one of the children to the other.
"An invitation!" cried Rose.
"Yes, and I do hope you will accept," said Captain Ben. "The summer is
not quite over," he went on to Mr. and Mrs. Bunker, "and I'm sure these
youngsters will be all the better for some more vacation. Let's go in,
away from the crowd, and I'll explain about my invitation."
And each and every one of the six little Bunkers wondered what was
going to happen.