Back Home Part 10

"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. n.o.body 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 pa.s.sing 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' c.u.mmins'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 G.o.d! 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 n.o.ble," 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' tha.s.so? 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!"

"h.e.l.lo, 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."