Mr. Silverstone was gloomily considering whether he had not better blow
out the lights in the New York One Price Clothing Store, and lock up for
the night. Kerosene was fifteen cents a gallon, and not a customer had
been in since supper-time. Business was “ofle, simbly ofle.”
The streets were empty. There were lights only in the barber shop where
one patron was being lathered while two mandolins and a guitar gave a
correct imitation of two house-flies and a bluebottle in Riley's
where, in default of other occupation, Mr. Riley was counting up;
in Oesterle's, where a hot discussion was going on as to whether
Christopher Columbus was a Dutchman or a Dago, and in Miller's, where
Tom Ball was telling Tony, who impassively wiped the perforated brass
plate let into the top of the bar, that he, Tom Ball, “coul' lick em man
ill Logan coun'y.”
Lamps shone in every parlor, where little girls labored with: “And one
and two, three and one and two, three,” occasionally coming out to look
at the clock to see if the hour was any nearer being up than it was
five minutes ago. They also shone in sitting-rooms, where boys looked
fiercely at “X2 +2Xy+y2,” mothers placidly darned stockings, and
fathers, Weekly Examiner in hand, patiently struggled to disengage from
“boiler-plate” and bogus news about people snatched from the jaws of
death by the timely use of Dr. McKinnon's Healing Extract of Timothy and
Red-top, items of real news, such as who was sick and what ailed them,
who cut his foot with the ax while splitting stove-wood, and where the
cake sale by the Rector's Aid of Grace P.E. would be held next week.
At the prayer-meeting, Uncle Billy Nicholson was giving in his
experience and had just got to that part about: “Sometimes on
the mountaintop, and sometimes in the valley, but still,
nevertheless--” when, all of a sudden, something happened.
The mandolins stopped with a jerk. Mr. Riley stood tranced at: “And ten
is thirty-five.” Mr. Ball was stricken dumb in the celebration of his
own great physical powers. The crowd in Oesterle's forgot Columbus, and
were as men beholding a ghost. The drowsy congregation sat up rigid, and
Mr. Silverstone gave a guilty start. He had been thinking of that very
thing!
The next instant, front doors were wrenched open, and the street echoed
with the sound of windows being raised. Fathers and sons rushed out on
the front porch, followed by little girls, to whom any excuse to stop
practising was like a plank to a drowning man.
They had heard aright. Up by the Soldiers' Monument fell the clump of
tired feet, and upon the air floated the wild alarm of--.
“FIRE! Pooh-ha! FIRE! Poof! FIRE!”
Mat King, the assistant chief, kicked off his slippers, and swiftly
laced up his shoes, grabbed his speaking-trumpet and his helmet, and
tore out of the house. If he could only get to the engine-house before
Charley Lomax, the chief! But Charley was the lone customer in the
barber's char. With the lather on one side of his face, he clapped on
his hat and broke for the firebell, four doors below.
“Where's it at?”
“FIRE! Pooh-ha! FIRE! Sm-poohl Fi--(gulp)--FIRE!”
“It's Linc Hoover. Hay, Linc! Where's the fire?”
“FIRE! Pooh-ha! FIRE! ha, ha! FIRE!”
“Hay, Linc! Where's it at? Tell me and I'll run. Hay! Where's it at?”
“FIRE! Swope's be--(gulp) Swope's barn. FIRE!”
“Which Swope? Henry or the old man?”
“FIRE! Pooh! J. K. Swope. Whoo-ha, whooh-ha! Out out on West End Avenue.
Poof!”
The news thus being passed, the fresher runners scampered ahead,
bawling: “FOY-URRR' FOY-URRR! and Linc, the hero, slowed down, gasping
for breath and spitting cotton.
“Whew!” he whistled, gustily, his arms dropping and his whole frame
collapsing. “Gee! I'm 'bout tuckered. Sm-pooh! Sm-pooh! Run all th'
way f'm--sm-ha, sm-ha!--run all th' way f'm--mouth's all stuck
together--p'too! ha! Pooh! Fm West End Avenue and Swo--Swope's. Gee! I'm
hot's flitter.”
“Keep y' coat on when you're all of a prespiration, that way. How'd it
ketch?”
“Ount know. 'S comin' by there an' I--whoof! I smelt smoke and--Gosh!
I'm all out o' breath--an' I looked an' I je-e-est could see a
light--wisht I had a drink o' somepin' to rench mum mouth out. Whew! Oh,
laws! An' it was Swope's barn and I run in an' opened the door, didn't
stop to knock or nung, an' I hollered out: 'Yib barn's afire!' an' he
run out in his sockfeet, an' he says: 'My Lord!' he says. 'Linc,' he
says, 'run git the ingine an' I putt.” Linc drew in a long, tremulous
breath like a man that has looked on sorrow.
“Why 'n't you--”
“Betchy 't was tramps,” interrupted a bystander. “Git in the haymow an'
think they got to have their blamed old pipe a-goin'--”
“Cigarettes, more likely,” said another. “More darn devilment comes from
cigarettes--”
“Why'n't you--”
“Ount know nung 'bout tramps,” said Linc. “All I seen was the fire. I
was a-comin' long a-past there an' I smelt the smoke an' thinks I--What
say?”
“Why'n't you telefoam down?”
Linc, the hero, shrunk a foot. “I gosh!” he admitted, “I never thought
to.”
“Jist'a' telefoamed, you could 'a' saved yourself all that--”
“Ain't they weltin' the daylights out o' that bell? All foolishness! Now
they're ringin' the number--one, two, three, four. Yes, sir, that's up
in the West End. You goin'? Come on, then.”
“No, Frank, I can't let you go. You've got your lessons to get. Well,
now, mother, make up your mind if you're comin' along. Cora, what on
earth are you doing out here in the night air with nothing around you?
Now, you mosey right back into that parlor, and don't you make a move
off that piano-stool till your hour's up. Do you hear me? No. Frank.
I told you once you couldn't go and that ends it. Stop your whining! I
can't have you running hither and yon all hours of the night, and we not
know where you are. Well, hurry up, then, mother. Take him in with you.
Oh, just throw a shawl over your head. Nobody 'll see you, or if they
do they won't care.” The apparatus trundles by, the bells on the trucks
tolling sadly as the striking gear on the rear axle engages the cam. A
hurrying throng scuffles by in the gloom. The tolling grows fainter, the
throng thinner.
“Good land! Is she going to be all night? Wish 't I hadn't proposed it.
That's the worst of taking a woman anyplace. Fuss and fiddle by the
hour in front of the looking-glass. Em! (Be all over by the time we get
there) Oh, Em! Em!... EM! (Holler my head offl) EM!.... Well, why don't
you answer me? Well, I didn't hear you. How much long--Oh, I know
about-- 'Hour' you mean.... Oh, how do you do, Mrs. Conklin? Hello, Fred.
Pleased to meet you, Miss Shoemaker. Yes, I saw in the paper you were
visiting your sister. This your first visit to our little burg? Yes,
we think it's quite a place. You see, we're trying to make your stay as
interesting as possible.... Oh, no, not altogether on your account. No,
no. Ha! Ha-ha-ha! Hum! ah!... Well, yes, if she ever gets done primping
up. Oh, there you are. Miss Shoemaker, let me make you acquainted with
my wife. Now, you girls'll have to get a move on if you want to see
anything.”
The male escorts grasp the ladies' arms and shove them ahead, that being
the only way if you are ever going to get any place. The women gasp and
pant and make a great to-do.
“Ooh! Wait till I get my breath. Will! Weeull! Don't go so fay-ust!
Oooh! I can't stand it. Oh, well, you're a man.”
But when they turn the corner that gives them a good view of the
blaze, fluttering great puffs of flame, and hear the steady crackle and
snapping, as it were, of a great popper full of pop-corn, they, too,
catch the infection, and run with a loud swashing and slatting of
skirts, giggling and squealing about their hair coming down.
In the waving orange glare the crowd is seen, shifting and moving. It
seems impossible for the onlookers to remain constant in one spot. The
chief, Charley Lomax, is gesticulating with wide arm movements. He puts
his speaking-trumpet to his mouth. “Yoffemoffemoffemoffemoffi” he says.
“Wha-at?” the men halloo back.
“Yoffemoffemoffemoffemoff.”
“What'd he say?”
“Search me. John, you run over and ask him what he wants. Or, no; I'll
go myself.”
“Why in Sam Hill didn't you come sooner?” demands the angry chief.
“Well, why in Sam Hill don't you talk so 's a body can understand you?
'Yoffemoffemoffemoffem.' Who can make sense out o' that?”
“The hose ain't long enough to reach from here to the hydrant. You 'n'
some more of 'em run down t' th' house an' git that other reel.”
“Aw, say, Chief! Look here. I'm awful busy right now. Can't somebody
else go?”
“You go an' do what I tell you to, and don't gimme none o' your back
talk.”
(Too dag-gon bossy and dictatorial, that Charley Lomax is. Getting
'most too big for his breeches. Never mind, there's going to be a fire
election week from Tuesday. See whether he'll be chief next year or not.
Sending a man away from the fire right at the most interesting part!)
“I'll go, Chief, wommetoo,” puts in jumbo Lee, all in a huddle of
words. “Ije slivsnot. Aw ri. Mon Jim. Shoonmeansmore of 'em go
gitth'otherreel.”
Jumbo isn't a member of the fire department, though he is wild to join.
He isn't old enough. He is six feet one inch, weighs 180, and won't
be sixteen till the 5th of next February. Nobody ever saw him when
he wasn't eating. They say he clips his words so as to save time for
eating. He takes a cracker out of his pocket, shoves it in his mouth
whole, jams his hat down till his ears stick out, and, with his
companions, tears down the road, seemingly propelled as much by his
elbows as by his legs. Why, under the combined strain of growing and
running, he doesn't part a seam somewhere is a dark mystery.
Crash! The roof of the barn caves in and reveals what we had not before
suspected, that Platt's barn, on the other side of the alley, is afire
too. Say! This is getting interesting. The wind is setting directly
toward Swope's house. It has been so terribly dry this last month or
so that the house will go like powder if it ever catches. Why, I think
Swope has a well and cistern both. Used to have, anyway, before they put
the water-works in, and the board of health condemned the wells. Say!
There was a put-up job if there ever was one. Why, sure! Sure he had
stock in the water works. Doc. Muzzey? I guess, yes.... Pity they ever
traded off the hand-engine. They got a light-running hook-and-ladder
truck. Won two prizes at the tournament, just with that truck. But if
they had that hand-engine now though! “Up with her! Down with her!” Have
that fire out in no time!
They're not trying to save the barns. They're a dead loss. What little
water they can get from the cisterns and wells around--hasn't it been
dry?--they are using to try to save Swope's house, and the one next
to it. Is that where Lonny Wheeler lives? I knew it was up this way
somewhere. Don't he look ridiculous, sitting up there a-straddle of his
ridgepole, with a tin-cup? A tin-cup, if you please. Over this way
a little. See better. They're wetting down the roof. Line of fellows
passing buckets to the ladder, and a line up the ladder. What big sparks
those are! Puts you in mind of Fourth of July. How the roof steams! Must
be hot up there.
O-o-o-oh!
A universal indrawn breath from all spectators proclaims their horror.
One of the men on the roof missed his footing and slipped, rolling over
and over till he reached the roof of the porch, where he spread-eagled
for a fall. The women begin to moan. Some poor fellow gone to his death.
Or, if he be so lucky as to miss death itself, he is doomed to languish
all his days a helpless cripple. Like enough the sole support of an aged
mother; or perhaps his wife is sitting up for him at home now, tiptoeing
into the bedroom every little while to look at the sleeping children.
That's generally the way of it. Who is there so free and foot-loose
that, if harm befall him, some woman will not go mourning all her days?
It must take the heart out of brave men to think what their women folk
must suffer, mothers and wives and--Who? Dan O'Brien? Oh, he'll be all
right. He'll light on his feet like a cat. I believe that boy is made of
India rubber. He never gets hurt. Why, one time--Ah! There he goes
now up the ladder as if nothing had happened. Hooray-ayayay!
Hooray-ay-ay-ay! I thought he'd broken his neck as sure as shooting.
Wandering about one cannot fail to encounter what the gallant
fire-laddies have rescued from the devouring element. There is the piano
with a deep scratch across the upper part, and the top lid hanging by
one hinge. It caught in the door, and the boys were kind of in a hurry.
There is the parlor carpet, plucked up by the roots, as it were; and
two tubs, the washboard and a bag of clothes-pins; a stuffed chair,
with three casters gone, the coffee-pot, a crayon enlargement, a winter
overcoat, a blanket, a pile of old dresses, the screw-driver and a paper
of tacks in the colander, the couch with a triangular rip in the cover,
the coal-scuttle, a pile of dishes, the ax and wood-saw, a fancy pillow,
the sewing-machine with the top gone, the wash-boiler, the basket of
dirty clothes, with the stove-shaker and the parlor clock in together,
and a heap of books, all spraddled and sprawled every which way. Upon
this pitiful mound sits Mrs. Swope with her baby sound asleep upon her
bosom. She mingles her tears with the sustaining tea that Mrs. Farley
has made for her. Swope, still in his socks and with his wife's
shoulder-cape upon him, caught up somehow, is trying to soothe her. He
is as mad as a hornet, and doesn't dare to show it. All this furniture
he had insured. It was all old stuff their folks had given them. If the
gallant fire-laddies had been as discreet as they were zealous, they
would have let the furniture go, and Swope and his wife would have had
an entire, brand-new outfit. As it is, who can ever make that junk look
like anything any more?
What's this coming up the road? Jumbo Lee and his friends with the other
hose-reel. Now they will connect it with the hydrant, and have water
a-plenty to save the house. Now the fellows are coming down from the
ladder. Cistern's empty, I suppose. The other reel didn't come any too
soon. How the roof steams! Or is it smoking?
“Don't stand around here with that reel! Up to that water-plug. Farther
up the street. Front o' Cummins's.”
Jumbo crams another cracker into his mouth and speeds away, hunching the
patient, unresenting air with his elbows.
Ah! See--that little flicker of flame on the roof! Do, for pity's sake,
hurry up with that connection! The roof is really burning. See? They are
trying to chop away the burning place. But there's another! And another!
A-a-ah! Hooray-ay! Connection's made! Now you'll see something. Out of
the way there! One side! One side! Up you go!... Wha-at? Is that the
best they can do? Why, it won't run out of the nozzle at all when it's
up on the roof. Not a drop. Feeble little dribble when it's on the
ground-level. There's your water-works for you. It is a good long way
from the fire-plug I know, but there ought to be more pressure than
that. Oh, pshaw! If we only had the old hand-engine! “Up with her! Down
with her!” Have that fire out in no time. The house will have to go now.
Too bad!
Somebody in the second story is rescuing property from the devouring
element. He has just tossed out a wash-bowl and pitcher. Luckily they
both fell on the sod and rolled apart. He takes down the roller-shade
and flings it out. The lace curtains follow. They catch on the edge
of the veranda roof, and languidly wave there as for some holiday.
Bed-clothes issue and pillows hurtle out. What's he doing now? No use.
No use. You can't get the mattress out of that window. A waste-paper
basket, a rag rug, a brush and comb--as fast as his hands can fly he's
throwing out things.
The women began to whimper.
“Oh, the poor man! The roof will fall in on him! He'll smother to death!
Oh, why doesn't somebody go tell him to come away? Not you! Don't you
think of such a trick! Oh, why does he risk his life for a lot of trash
I wouldn't have around the house?”
The smoke oozes out of the open window. It must be choking in there.
For a long time no jettison of household goods appears. Perhaps the man,
whoever he is, has seen his peril and fled while yet it was possible to
flee. Ah, but suppose he has been overcome and lies there huddled in a
heap, never to rouse again? Is there none to save him? Is there none?
Ah! A couple of collars and a magazine flutter out into the light! He
is still there. He is still alive. Plague take the idiot! Why doesn't he
come down out of that?
“Yoffemoffemoffemoffemoff. Yoffemoff!”
But no! He will do it himself. The Chief rushes gallantly into the
burning building and disappears up the dark stair.
Desperate measures are now to be resorted to. On the lawn a line of
men forms. They bend their necks, cowering before the fierce glow, but
daring it, and prepared to face it at even closer range. You are to
witness now an exhibition of that heroism which is commoner with us
than we think, that spirit of do and dare which mocks at danger and
even welcomes pain. It is a far finer sentiment than the cold-hearted
calculation which looks ahead, and figures out first whether it is worth
while or not.
The men dash forward in the withering heat. With frantic haste they fix
the hook into the lattice-work beneath the porch and scamper back.
“Yo hee! Yo hee!”
The thick rope tautens as the firemen lay their weight to it. You can
almost see the bristling fibers stand up on it.
“Yo hee! Yo hee!”
With a splintering crash the timber parts, and a piece of lattice-work
is dragged away.
Another sortie and another. Bit by bit the porch is ripped and torn to
rubbish. You smile. It seems so futile. What are these kindlings saved
when the whole house is burning? Is this what you call heroism? Yet
the charge at Balaklava was not more futile. It had even less of
commonsense, less of hope of benefit to mankind to back it and inspire
it. Heroism is an instinct, not a thoughtout policy. Its quality is the
same, in two-ounce samples or in car-load lots.
The weather-boarding slips down in a sparkling fall. The joists and
stringers, all outlined and gemmed with coals, are, as it were, a golden
grille, through which the world may look unhindered in upon the holy
place of home, heretofore conventually private. There stands the family
altar, pitifully grotesque amid the ruinous splendor of the destroying
fire, the tea-kettle upon it proudly flaunting its steamy plume. What?
Is a common cooking-stove an altar? Yes, verily, in lineal descent.
Examine an ancient altar and you will see its sacrificial stone scored
and guttered to catch the dripping from the roasting meat. Who is
the priestess, after an order older than Melchisedec's, but she that
ministers to us that most comfortable sacrament, wherein we are made
partakers not alone of the outward and visible food which we do carnally
press with our teeth, but also of that inward and spiritual sustenance,
the patient and enduring love of wife and mother, without which there
can be no such thing as home? All other sacraments wherein men break
the bread of amity together are but copies of this pattern, the Blessed
Sacrament of the Household Altar, the first and primal one of all, the
one that shall perdure, please God! throughout all ages of ages.
The flames die down. The timbers sink together with a softer fall. The
air grows chill. We fetch a sigh. We cannot bear to look at that mute
figure of the priestess seated on the sordid heap of broken furniture,
her sleeping baby pressed against her breast, her gaze fixed--but
seeing naught--upon her ruined temple. We do not like to think upon such
things. We do not like to think at all. Is there nothing more to laugh
at?
The firemen, having all borrowed the makings of a cigarette from each
other, put on their hats and coats, left on the hook-and-ladder truck in
the custody of a trusted member. The apparatus trundles off, the bells
dolorously tolling as the striking gear on the rear axle engages the
cam.
Who is this weeping man approaches, supported by two friends, that
comfort him with: “All right, Tom. You done noble,” uttered in pacifying
if not convincing tones? Heart-brokenly he cries: “I dull le ver' bes' I
knowed, now di' n't I? Charley? Billy, I dub bes' I knowed how. An' nen
he says to me--Oo-hoo-hoo-oooo-oo! He says to me: 'Come ou' that, ye
cussed fool!' Oo-oooo-hoo-hoo-oo-oo! Smf! Lemme gi' amma ham hankshiff.
Leg go my arm. Waw gi' amma hankshifp. Oo-oo-oo-hoo-hoo-oo-oo! Fmf! I
ash you as may wurl--I ash you as may--man of world, is that--is that
proper way address me? Me! Know who I am? I'm Tom Ball. 'S who I am. I
kill lick em man ill Logan Coun'y. Ai' thasso? Hay? 'S aw ri. Mfi choose
stay up there, aw thas sec--aw thas second floor and rescue fel-cizzen's
propprop'ty from devouring em--from devouring emlement, thas my bizless.
Ai' tham my bizless, Charley? Ai' tham my bizless, Billy? W'y, sure.
Charley, you're goof feller. You too, Billy. You're goof feller, too.
Say. Wur-wur if Miller's is open yet? 'Spose it is? Charley; I dub bes'
I knowed how, di'n't I, now? Affor that Chief come up thas stairway and
say me: 'Come ou' that, ye cussed fool!' Aw say! 'Come ou' that--'Called
me fool, too! Oo-hoo-hoo-oo-oo-oo!”
“Hello, Dan! Hurt yourself any? (That's Dan O'Brien. Fell off the roof.)
Well, sir, I thought sure you'd broken your neck. You don't know your
luck. And let me tell you one thing, my bold bucko: You'll do that just
once too often. Now you mark.”
The day before the Weekly Examiner goes to press, Mr. Swope hands the
editor a composition entitled: “A Card of Thanks,” signed by John K.
and Amelia M. Swope, and addressed to the firemen and all who showed by
their many acts of kindness, and so forth and so on.
“Kind of help to fill up the paper,” says Mr. Swope, covering his
retreat.
“Sure,” replies the editor. When Mr. Swope is good and gone, he says:
“Dog my riggin's if I didn't forget all about writing up that fire. Been
so busy here lately. Good thing he come in. Hay, Andy!”
“Watch want?” from the composing-room.
“Got room for about two sticks more?”
“Yes, guess so. If it don't run over that.”
A brief silence. Then:
“Hay, Andy?”
“What?”
“Is it 'had have,' or 'had of?”
“What's the connection?”
“Why-ah. 'If the gallant fire-laddies, under the able direction of Chief
Charley Lomax, had of had a sufficiency of water with which to cope with
the devouring element--'etc.”
“'Had have,' I guess. I don't know.”
“Guess you're right. Run it that way anyhow.”