THE DEVOURING ELEMENT
Not even Helen heard Ruth's whispered words. She went on calmly with her
supper when her chum arose from her seat.
Ruth quickly controlled herself. The word "fire" would start a panic on
the instant, although both dormitories were across the campus from the
main hall.
The girl of the Red Mill erased from her countenance all expression of the
fear which gripped her; but about her heart she felt a pressure like that
of a tight band. Her knees actually knocked together; she was thankful
they were invisible just then.
When she started up the room toward Mrs. Tellingham's table Ruth walked
steadily enough. Some of the girls looked after her in surprise; but it
was not an uncommon thing for a girl to leave her seat and approach the
preceptress.
Mrs. Tellingham looked up with a smile when she saw Ruth coming. She
always had a smile for the girl of the Red Mill.
The preceptress, however, was a sharp reader of faces. Her own expression
of countenance did not change, for other girls were looking; but she saw
that something serious had occurred.
"What is it, Ruth?" she asked, the instant her low whisper could reach
Ruth's ear.
The girl, looking straight at her, made the letters "F-I-R-E" with her
lips. But she uttered no sound. Mrs. Tellingham understood, however, and
demanded:
"Where?"
"West Dormitory, Mrs. Tellingham," said Ruth, coming closer.
"Are you positive?"
"I can see it from my seat. On the second floor. In one of the duo rooms
at this side."
Ruth spoke these sentences in staccato; but her voice was low and she
preserved an air of calmness.
"Good girl!" murmured Mrs. Tellingham. "Go out quietly and then run and
tell Tony. Do you know where he is?"
"Lighting the lamps," whispered Ruth.
"Good. Tell him to go right up there and see what can be done. Warn Miss
Scrimp. I will telephone to town, and Miss Brokaw will take charge and
march the pupils to the big hall to call the roll. I hope nobody is in the
dormitories."
Mrs. Tellingham had pushed back her chair and dropped her napkin; but her
movements, though swift, were not alarming. She passed out by a rear door
which led to the kitchens, while Ruth walked composedly down the room to
the main exit.
"Hey! what's the matter, Ruthie?" called Heavy, in a low tone. "Whose old
cat's in the well?"
Ruth appeared not to hear her. Miss Brokaw, a very capable woman, came
into the dining hall as Ruth passed out. Miss Brokaw stepped to the
monitor's desk at one side and tapped on the bell.
"Oh, mercy!" gasped Heavy, the incorrigible. "She's shut us off again. And
I haven't had half enough to eat."
"Rise!" said Miss Brokaw, after a moment of waiting. "Immediately, girls.
Miss Stone, you will come, too."
A murmur of laughter rose at Jennie Stone's evident intention to linger;
but Heavy always took admonition in good part, and she arose smiling.
"Monitors to their places," commanded Miss Brokaw. "You will march to the
big hall. It is Mrs. Tellingham's request. She will have something of
importance to say to you."
The big hall was on the other side of the building, and from its windows
nothing could be seen of either dormitory.
Meanwhile, Ruth, once alone in the hall, had bounded to the chief
entrance of the building and opened one leaf of the heavy door. It was a
crisp night and the frost bit keenly. The wind fluttered her skirt about
her legs.
She stopped for no outer apparel, however, but dashed out upon the stone
portico, drawing the door shut behind her. That act alone saved the school
from panic; for it she had left the door ajar, when the girls filed out
into the entrance hall from the dining room some of them would have been
sure to see the growing red glow on the second floor of the West
Dormitory.
To Ruth the fire seemed to be filling the room in which it had apparently
started. There was no smoke as yet; but the flames leaped higher and
higher, while the illumination grew frightfully.
A spark of light coming into being at the far end of the campus near the
East Dormitory, showed Ruth where Tony Foyle then was. He was not likely
to see the fire as yet, for in lighting the campus lamps he followed a
route that kept his back to the West Dormitory until he turned to come
back.
Like an arrow from the bow the young girl ran toward the distant gardener.
She took the steps of the little Italian garden in the center of the
campus in two flying leaps, passed the marble maiden at the fountain, and
bounded up to the level of the campus path again without stopping.
"Tony! Oh, Tony!" she called breathlessly.
"Shure now, phat's the matter widyer?" returned the old Irishman,
querulously. "Phy! 'tis Miss Ruth, so ut is. Phativer do be the trouble,
me darlin'?"
He was very fond of Ruth and would have done anything in his power for
her. So at once Tony was exercised by her appearance.
"Phativer is the matter?" he repeated.
"Fire!" blurted out Ruth, able at last to speak. The keen night air had
seemed for the moment fairly to congest her lungs and render her
speechless and breathless.
"That's _that_?" cried Tony. "'Fire,' says you? An' where is there fire
save in the furnaces and the big range in the kitchen----"
He had turned, and the red glare from the room on the second floor of the
West Dormitory came into his view.
"There it is!" gasped Ruth, and just then the tinkle of breaking glass
betrayed the fact that the heat of the flames was bursting the panes of
the window.
"Fur the love of----Begorra! I'll git the hose-cart, an' rouse herself an'
the gals in the kitchen----"
Poor Tony, so wildly excited that he dropped the little "dhudeen" he was
smoking and did not notice that he stepped on it, galloped away on
rheumatic legs. At this hour there was no man on the premises but the
little old Irishman, who cared for the furnaces until the fireman and
engineer came on duty at seven in the morning.
Ruth was quite sure that neither Tony nor "herself" (by this name he meant
Mrs. Foyle, the cook) or any of the kitchen girls, could do a thing
towards extinguishing the fire. But she remembered that Miss Scrimp, the
matron, must be in the threatened building, and the girl dashed across the
intervening space and in at the door.
There was not a sound from upstairs--no crackling of flames. Ruth would
never have believed the dormitory was afire had she not seen the fire
outside.
The girl ran down the corridor to Miss Scrimp's room, and burst in the
door like a young hurricane. The matron was at tea, and she leaped up in
utter amazement when she saw Ruth.
"For the good land's sake, Ruthie Fielding!" she ejaculated. "Whatever is
the matter with you?"
"Fire!" cried Ruth. "One of the rooms on the next floor--front--is all
afire! I saw it from the dining hall! Mrs. Tellingham has telephoned for
the department at Lumberton----"
With a shriek of alarm, Miss Scrimp picked up the little old "brown Betty"
teapot off the hearth of her small stove, and started out of the room
with it--whether with the expectation of putting out the fire with the
contents of the pot, or not, Ruth never learned.
But when the lady was half way up the first flight of stairs the flames
suddenly burst through the doorframe, and Miss Scrimp stopped.
"That candle!" she shrieked. "I knew I had no business to give that girl
that candle."
"Who?" asked Ruth.
"That infant--Amy Gregg her name is. I'll tell Mrs. Tellingham----"
"But please don't tell anybody else, Miss Scrimp," begged Ruth. "It will
be awful for Amy if it becomes generally known that she is at fault."
"Well, now," said the matron more calmly, coming down the stairs again.
"You are right, Ruthie--you thoughtful child. We can't do a thing up
there," she added, as she reached the lower floor again. "All we can do is
to take such things out as we can off this floor," and she promptly
marched out with the little tea-pot and deposited it carefully on the
grassplot right where somebody would be sure to step on it when the
firemen arrived.
Miss Scrimp prided herself upon having great presence of mind in an
emergency like this. A little later Ruth saw the good woman open her
window and toss out her best mirror upon the cement walk.
Miss Picolet came flying toward the burning building, chattering about her
treasures she had brought from France. "Le Bon Dieu will not let to burn
up my mothair's picture--my harp--my confirmation veil--all, all I have of
my youth left!" chattered the excited little Frenchwoman, and because of
her distress and her weakness, Ruth helped remove the harp and likewise
the featherbed on which the French teacher always slept and which had come
with her from France years before.
By the time these treasures were out of the house a crowd came running
from the main building--Mrs. Foyle, some of the kitchen girls and
waitresses, Tony dragging the hose cart, and last of all Dr. Tellingham
himself.
The good old doctor was the most absent minded man in the world, and the
least useful in a practical way in any emergency. He never had anything of
importance to do with the government of the school; but he sometimes gave
the girls wonderfully interesting lectures on historical subjects. He
wrote histories that were seldom printed save in private editions; but
most of the girls thought the odd old gentleman a really wonderful
scholar.
He was in dishabille just now. He had run out in his dressing-gown and
carpet slippers, and without his wig. That wig was always awry when he
was at work, and it was a different color from his little remaining hair,
anyway. But without the toupé at all he certainly looked naked.
"Go back, that's a dear man!" gasped Mrs. Foyle, turning the doctor about
and heading him in the right direction. "Shure, ye air not dacently
dressed. Go back, Oi say. Phat will the young ladies be thinkin' of yez?
Ye kin do no good here, dear Dochter."
This was quite true. He could do no good. And, as it turned out later, the
unfortunate, forgetful, short-sighted old gentleman had already done a
great deal of harm.