Harry Watson's High School Days Part 8

Mr. Martin's house was situated on the main street, and as the members of the volunteer fire company rushed by to get the hand engine, Paul's father called out:

"Where is it, boys?"

"It's Jed Brown's house," came the answer.

CHAPTER IX-THE FALSE CHARGE

A fire in a small country village, always a dread catastrophe, is much more serious in the winter, especially when any wind is stirring; and in the realization of these facts, the street was soon alive with men and women hurrying to the scene of the conflagration.

When they learned, however, that it was the home of the crippled veteran, many of them turned back.

All Paul's friends, together with his father, had started towards the scene, as soon as they knew where the fire was; and as Mr. Martin met several men whom he knew, returning, he asked:

"Where are you going? Is the fire out, or what?"

"Oh, it's nothing but old Jed Brown's shanty," retorted one of them.

"That doesn't make any difference. You ought to be willing to help Jed as quickly as anyone else. Besides, there's quite a wind, and if we don't check the blaze, it may spread. Now turn around and come back with me."

As Mr. Martin was a person of importance and influence in Rivertown, the men whom he had stopped and ordered to go back quickly obeyed.

When they arrived at the head of the street whence they could see the veteran's little house, they all realized that it would be impossible to save it, for, though it had been a short fifteen minutes since the alarm had been sounded, the house was a seething ma.s.s of flames.

Frantically men were working with shovels, throwing the snow which they scooped up onto the leaping tongues of fire, but without any result.

Rising high into the air, the sparks were borne in all directions, and when an unusually strong gust of wind swirled down the bluff, the burning brands were carried from the doomed house.

"Where are the boys with the hand engine?" demanded Mr. Martin, when no sight or sound was there of the volunteer fire department. "Aren't they coming?"

"They're stuck. One of the runners on the front bob gave in," informed a man who had just joined the constantly-increasing fringe of men and women whose figures stood out in prominent silhouette against the lurid flames.

"Then we must get busy and form bucket brigades to wet down the roofs of those two houses right alongside!" exclaimed Mr. Martin, pointing to two large white residences, one of which was about one hundred feet from the burning house, and the other almost directly across the not over-wide street.

"Come on, men! If those houses catch, the fire will sweep right through the town! A quarter of an hour's work now will save them; but if we wait very long it will be too late."

Aroused by the words of the town Nestor, the men and boys lost no time in rushing to each of the residences; and while some of them went into the kitchens and manned the pumps, others formed a line to pa.s.s the pails, which were contributed by everybody; while others of the men who had placed ladders against the eaves, mounted the roof, where they sat astraddle of the ridgepole, dousing the embers which were falling on the roofs with greater frequency.

Suddenly, the rumor spread among those still watching the fire that the crippled veteran was in his house.

Hysterical women wrung their hands and begged the men to rush into the flames and rescue the helpless man. Such an act, however, would have been the height of folly, and none of them made the attempt, knowing full well that were he inside he would have met his death long before.

[Ill.u.s.tration: OTHERS FORMED A LINE TO Pa.s.s THE PAILS.]

The rumor, however, was dispelled almost as quickly as it had started.

"Ha! Old Jed ain't in the house! I seen him sneaking off down the street just as soon as the fire was going well," exclaimed Pud.

"How long was that before the alarm was given?" demanded several of the men, who had heard the statement of the butcher's son.

"Oh, five or ten minutes, I should say. It seems funny to me that the house should burn so quickly; and then I should have thought Jed would have wanted to stay and watch it," added Pud.

Had the boy known, however, the purpose for which the old veteran had gone down the street, he would have been less active in trying to sow the seeds of suspicion among those who were in earshot of him. But in his ignorance he continued to make statements that would cast suspicion upon the old man.

"When I first seen the fire, I thought I smelled kerosene."

"So did I," chorused several others.

This mention of the fact that they had noted the odor of the combustible oil immediately started the tongues of the women gossips to wagging; and gathering into little groups, they began to talk over with one another the reasons the crippled veteran would have for burning up his home.

The bully, however, had not finished his sensational statements. No sooner had he seen that his sowing of the seed of suspicion had found ready soil, than he added to his previous effect by saying:

"After I seen Jed and smelled the kerosene, I went down around behind the house and seen a fellow running. Seeing he was headed toward the village I cut around back and followed him while he walked up Kenosha street-and who do you think it was?"

The highly excitable minds of the women and the village gossips had been worked to concert pitch by the bully, and as he paused dramatically after his story, they cried:

"Who? Tell us, quick!"

Looking round from one to another of the score of people who had gathered about him, the bully exclaimed:

"It was Harry Watson, the boy that's come to live here!"

CHAPTER X-HARRY IS EXONERATED

Unfortunately for Harry, he and his boy and girl friends who had been at the Martins' house during the evening were all scattered between the two houses where the bucket brigades were working, and no one was there to speak a good word for him in contradiction of Snooks' most despicable charge, for his manner as he spoke gave no room to doubt that he believed the new student had fired the building.

The others quickly put this interpretation upon his statement, and with the rapidity only to be found in villages, word spread about that Harry, for some fancied spite, had burned up the home of the crippled veteran.

And as the story was repeated, it lost nothing in the telling.

"Why doesn't someone go swear out a warrant for the boy's arrest?"

demanded a particularly irascible old woman.

"You can't do it, Mirandy, unless you got some reason for making the charge, and you didn't see the boy," returned one of the men.

"But Pud Snooks seen him. He can swear out a warrant!" exclaimed the spinster. "It ought to be done. There won't be n.o.body safe in the village with that boy liable to burn us all up at any time."

The words caused alarm among several of the women, who gathered about the old gossip, and they began to demand that action be taken; but when some of the men finally started to look for the bully who had spread the wicked report, he was nowhere to be seen.

The gossips, however, interpreted Snooks' absence to their own ends.