FIRE--AND NO INSURANCE
I went to bed early that night, and by 9:30 I was asleep.
I was dreaming about a new advertising scheme wherein I had copied the
old town crier plan by having a man go about the town ringing a bell and
then calling out, "Dawson Black's hardware store for goods of
quality!"--only, instead of giving him an ordinary bell, I had given him
a big electric bell operated by a battery, which he carried in his
pocket and which he rang every so often; and then in my dream the bell
had started to ring and he couldn't stop it. I tried to get away from
the sound of that incessant ringing, and I started to run away, but the
crier followed me and the sound of the bell kept growing louder and
louder in my ear. Suddenly he overtook me and grabbed me by the shoulder
and shook me. Then I heard Betty's voice saying, "Can't you hear the
telephone bell ringing, Dawson?"
Sure enough, it was the telephone bell. I got sleepily out of bed and
went over to the telephone. When I picked up the receiver, a voice
asked:
"Is that you, Mr. Black? Well, come down at once; there's a fire in your
store!" and with a click the receiver went into place.
My heart leaped up in my throat. I was fully awake in an instant. I
gasped out to Betty that the store was afire, and hastily put on some
clothes, wild thoughts scurrying through my mind. And the thought which
pounded at me most was that I had no insurance! The stock had been
covered when I took over the store, but about three weeks before I had
received a letter from the insurance agents in Boston that the policies
would expire in two weeks. I had intended to have the insurance renewed
through Pelton--we used to be chums, and he was an insurance agent in
town--and I had written the Boston agents so, and told them not to renew
the policies when they expired. Something had come up that made me put
off telephoning to Pelton, and I had let it go for a couple of days, and
then I had forgotten it altogether!
I didn't waste a second but rushed frantically down the street to the
store and there was a big blaze in the rear. The firemen had beaten down
the front door and several of them were in the store, while two others,
with the hose, were at the rear of the store. Dense clouds of smoke
arose, and every now and then I saw a tongue of flame shoot out from one
of the windows in the back of the store.
When I rushed into the back yard, the fire chief was there--dear,
kindly, old Jerry O'Toole. He grabbed me by the arm, saying soothingly:
"It's all right, son; more smoke than fire."
In fifteen minutes the firemen were all through. The fire had burned
through the back door, but hadn't time to get much headway inside the
store.
That Friday we had unpacked four cases of electrical goods, and we had
put the cases into the back yard, stuffing the excelsior into them. Some
of it, however, had been strewn about the yard. I remembered I had told
Larsen on Saturday that we ought to clean that up, but evidently in the
rush of Saturday he either hadn't time or had forgotten it. It was this
excelsior which had started to burn first.
When the smoke had cleared away and I had got into the store I
collapsed. All my strength left me, my knees gave way, and I sank into
the chair in my little office.
"My God, what a narrow escape!" I cried.
Jerry O'Toole was with me. "You bet it was," he said. "If one of my boys
hadn't a'bin passin' and seed the flame back there, it would have got a
good hold before we could a' got here."
"I wonder how it caught fire," I said.
"You can never tell. I was asking your neighbor if he'd seed any one
around back, but he said no."
"My neighbor?"
"Sure, the feller that opened the new 5- and 10-cent store--Stigler."
"What! Stigler!!"
"Yes, he was here when I got here, a' watching the fire. You don't seem
to like him any better'n he likes you!"
"Why?"
"Oh, when I asked him if he'd seed any one 'round, he said, 'No, but he
deserves to have his place set afire if he goes a'leavin' excelsior all
over the back yard.'"
"Oh!" And I thought to myself, "I wonder?"
Betty had arrived at the store about the time the fire was out. She,
poor girl, was almost hysterical. O'Toole put us into his automobile
after we had nailed things up and drove us home, but we didn't sleep
much, you can be sure.
What a fool I had been not to have seen about that insurance before it
expired!
We, all of us, Larsen, and Jones--got down to the store at six o'clock
the next morning. Wilkes, it seems, hadn't been awakened by the alarm,
and very much astonished he was when he arrived later and learned of the
fire. We went over things carefully, and fortunately found that the
damage was not very great. The front door was broken; the back door had
been burned, and the woodwork around it; and some panes of glass broken.
The four cases had been burned to a crisp, but, of course, that didn't
amount to anything. Altogether, the damage did not amount to more than
fifty dollars, and, of course, the building was covered by insurance and
that loss didn't fall on me. There were a few odds and ends which had
been blackened a little by smoke, and water had fallen on a few pans and
made rust spots, but the damage wasn't much.
You can be sure that the first thing I did was to chase down to Joe
Pelton's to get that insurance fixed up in double-quick order. When I
got there I learned that he was out of town, but was expected back about
three o'clock in the afternoon. I left word for him to come down and see
me just the minute he got back.
About twelve o'clock I got a long-distance call from Mr. Field, the
secretary of the Hardware Association. How he heard about it I don't
know.
"I hear you had a fire, Mr. Black," he said. "Much damage done?"
"No, fortunately not," I replied.
"What about your insurance?"
"I'm ashamed to say it,"--and I blushed when I told him,--"but my
policy had just run out, and I had not renewed it."
"I'm glad the damage wasn't much, Mr. Black. But now you want to insure
through your association,"--and then he gave me facts and figures
showing how much cheaper and safer it was to insure through the
association. I didn't bother much to understand, because I was so
anxious to get it fixed up, and it wasn't certain anyway that Pelton
would be back in the afternoon, so I told him to go ahead and fix it up
in double-quick order.
He mentioned one thing that was new to me, and that was about the
co-insurance clause. We were talking about how much insurance to have,
and he told me to be sure and have at least eighty per cent. of the
value of my stock, otherwise I was a co-insurer with the company, and in
case of loss would receive only a certain percentage of the amount of
damage.
I was glad to have that matter off my mind, and he promised to get busy
on it before he went out to lunch. I changed my opinion a little about
Mr. Field. He had struck me as being a man who always took things in an
easy-going way, but the promptness with which he got after me when he
spotted a new prospect for a policy, and the directness with which he
explained the proposition, showed me that he had plenty of energy to use
when necessary.
At four o'clock I got another surprise. This time it was a long-distance
call from Mr. Peck, the credit manager of Bates & Hotchkin.
"Have you had a fire, Mr. Black?" was his first remark.
"Yes," I replied, "quite an exciting time."
"Are you covered by insurance?"
"No--"
"What!" he cried, and there was great anxiety in his tone.
"No, the policy expired a few days ago and somehow I neglected to--"
"Neglected to--neglected such an important thing as your insurance!" My!
but I felt small! "What's the amount of damage?"
"I should say fifty dollars would cover it, and that's on the building,
not on the stock."
"Phew! I was told that you had been burned out." He must have felt
relieved. "You had better get busy and place insurance at once! And your
credit is stopped until you have fully protected yourself!"
I told him I had already arranged that with Mr. Field, and he said to
have Mr. Field advise him as soon as the policy was written.
Those two calls gave me an insight as to how real business was
conducted. Neither of them certainly delayed much when they heard about
it, and they must have had some means of finding out things promptly.
But I shuddered to think of my narrow escape. If the place had burned
down I'd have been absolutely ruined.
I wondered if Stigler would--oh, but no, it wasn't possible the man
would do such a thing. I saw him as he was coming home. "Had quite a
fire, didn't yer?" was his remark. "Sorry for yer"--but his tone belied
his words.
I wondered!