"Then we're going to be gipsies, aren't we?" exulted Junior.
His mother had straightened her hair, and turned the box upon which she
sat for the better accommodation of Anne and herself. Now she was
placidly watching the flames devour Holly Court; the pink banners that
blew loose in the upswirling gray fumes, and the little busy sucking
tongues that wrapped themselves about an odd cornice or window frame
and devoured it industriously. She saw her bedroom paper, the green
paper with the white daisies--Bert had thought that a too-expensive
paper--scarred with great gouts of smoke, and she saw the tangled pipes
of her own bathroom curve and drop down in a blackened mass, and all
the time her arm encircled Anne, and the child's heart beat less and
less fitfully, and Nancy's soul was steeped in peace.
"You'll get some insurance, Bert?" asked one of the many neighbours who
were hovering about the family group, waiting for a suitable moment in
which to offer sympathy. The first excitement of the reunion over, they
gathered nearer; Fielding and Oliver Rose coatless and perspiring from
their struggles with the furniture, a dozen others equally concerned
and friendly.
"Fourteen thousand," grinned Bert, "and I carry a thirteen-thousand
loan on her!"
"Gosh, that is tough luck, Brad! She's a dead loss then, for she's gone
like paper, and there won't be ten dollars' worth of salvage. You had
some furniture insurance?"
"Not a cent!" Bert said cheerfully. He glanced about at his excited
sons; his wife, bareheaded, and still pale, if smiling; his daughter
just over her tears; and his baby, plump and happy in her little white
petticoat. "I guess we got most everything out of the house that I care
much about!" smiled Bert.