John Ward, Preacher Part 17

"Oh," John said, smiling, while Helen began to pour some cream into his coffee from a flat little silver jug, "I forgot to mention it: the fact is, I took that tea with me this afternoon,--I thought probably they had none in the house; and I wish you could have seen the woman's joy at the sight of it. I cooked some for her,--she told me how," he said deprecatingly, for Helen laughed; "and she said it was very good, too,"

he added.

But Helen refused to believe that possible. "It was politeness, John,"

she cried gayly, "and because, I suppose, you presented her with my lacquered canister."

"I did leave it," John admitted; "I never thought of it." But he forgot even to ask forgiveness, as she bent towards him, resting her hand on his shoulder while she put his cup beside him.

"The fire has flushed your cheek," he said, touching it softly, the lover's awe shining in his eyes; with John it had never been lost in the a.s.sured possession of the husband. Helen looked at him, smiling a little, but she did not speak. Silence with her told sometimes more than words.

"It has been such a long afternoon," he said. "I was glad to hurry home; perhaps that is the reason I forgot the canister."

"Shall I send you back for it?" She put her lips for a moment against his hand, and then, glancing out at the night for sheer joy at the warmth and light within, she added, "Why, what is that glow, John? It looks like fire."

He turned, and then pushed back his chair and went to the window.

"It does look like fire," he said anxiously.

Helen had followed him, and they watched together a strange light, rising and falling, and then brightening again all along the sky. Even as they looked the upper heavens began to pulsate and throb with faint crimson.

"It is fire!" John exclaimed. "Let me get my coat. I must go."

"Oh, not now," Helen said. "You must finish your supper; and you are so tired, John!"

But he was already at the door and reaching for his hat.

"It must be the lumber-yards, and the river is frozen!"

"Wait!" Helen cried. "Let me get my cloak. I will go if you do," and a moment later the parsonage door banged behind them, and they hurried out into the darkness.

The street which led to the lumber-yards had been silent and deserted when John pa.s.sed through it half an hour before, but now all Lockhaven seemed to throng it.

The preacher and his wife could hear the snapping and crackling of flames even before they turned the last corner and saw the blaze, which, sweeping up into the cold air, began to mutter before it broke with a savage roar. They caught sight of Gifford's broad shoulders in the crowd, which stood, fascinated and appalled, watching the destruction of what to most of them meant work and wages.

"Oh, Giff!" Helen said when they reached his side, "why don't they do something? Have they tried to put it out?"

"It's no use to try now," Gifford answered. "They didn't discover it in time. It has made such headway, that the only thing to do is to see that it burns out, without setting fire to any of the houses. Fortunately the wind is towards the river."

John shook his head; he was too breathless to speak for a moment; then he said, "Something must be done."

"There is no use, Mr. Ward," Gifford explained. But John scarcely heard him; his people's comfort, their morality almost,--for poverty meant deeper sin to most of them,--was burning up in those great square piles of planks.

"Men," he shouted, "men, the engine! To the river! Run! run!"

"Nothing can be done," Gifford said, as the crowd broke, following the preacher, who was far ahead of all; but he too started, as though to join them, and then checked himself, and went back into the deserted street, walking up and down, a self-const.i.tuted patrol.

Almost every man had gone to the river. Tom Davis, however, with Molly beside him, stood lolling against a tree, sobered, indeed, by the shock of the fire, but scarcely steady enough on his legs to run. Another, who was a cripple, swaying to and fro on his crutches with excitement, broke into a storm of oaths because his companion did not do the work for which he was himself too helpless. But Tom only gazed with bleared eyes at the fire, and tried to stand up straight.

The little crowd of women about Helen had been silenced at first by the tumult and glare, but now broke into wild lamentations, and entreaties that Heaven would send the engine soon, wringing their hands, and sobbing, and frightening the children that clung about their skirts even more than the fire itself.

"How did it start?" Helen said, turning to the woman next to her, who, shivering with excitement, held a baby in her arms, who gazed at the fire with wide, tranquil eyes, as though it had been gotten up for his entertainment.

"They say," answered the woman, tossing her head in the direction of Tom Davis,--"they say him and some other fellows was in 'mong the lumber this afternoon, drinkin', you know, and smokin'. Most likely a match dropped, or ashes from their pipes. Drunken men ain't reasonable about them things," she added, with the simplicity of experience. "They don't stop to think they're burnin' up money, an' whiskey too; for Dobbs don't trust 'em, now the mill is shut down."

"Yes," said another woman who stood by, "them men! what do they care?

You," she shouted, shaking her fist at Tom,--"you'll starve us all, will ye? an' your poor wife, just up from her sick bed! I do' know as she'll be much worse off, though, when he is out of work," she added, turning to Helen--"fer every blessed copper he has goes to the saloon."

"Yer man's as bad as me," Tom protested, stung by her taunts and the jeers of the cripple.

"An' who is it as leads him on?" screamed the woman. "An' if he does take a drop sometimes, it wasn't him as was in the lumber-yard this afternoon, a-settin' fire to the boards, an' burnin' up the food and comfort o' the whole town!"

Tom hurled a torrent of profanity at the woman and the cripple collectively, and then stumbled towards the road with the crowd, for the fire was approaching the side of the yard where they stood, and beating them back into the village street.

The air was filled with the appalling roar and scream of the flames; showers of sparks were flung up against the black sky, as with a tremendous crash the inside of one of the piles would collapse; and still the engine did not come.

"Hurry! hurry!" the women shouted with hoa.r.s.e, terrified voices, and some ran to the edge of the bluff and looked down at the river.

The men were hurrying; but as they drew the long-unused engine from its shed, an axle broke, and with stiff fingers they tried to mend it. Some had had to run for axes to break the ice, and then they pushed and jostled each other about the square hole they had cut, to dip up the dark, swift water underneath; and all the while the sky behind them grew a fiercer red, and the very ice glared with the leaping flames. At last, pulling and pushing, they brought the little engine up the slope, and then with a great shout dragged it into the outskirts of the yard. They pumped furiously, and a small jet of water was played upon the nearest pile of boards. A hissing cloud of steam almost hid the volunteer firemen, but the flames leaped and tossed against the sky, and the sparks were sucked up into the cold air, and whirled in sheets across the river.

John Ward came breathlessly towards his wife. "Are you all right, Helen?

You seemed too near; come back a little further." Then, suddenly seeing the woman beside her with the baby in her arms, he stopped, and looked about. "Where's your boy, Mrs. Nevins?" he said. The woman glanced around her.

"I--I'm not just sure, preacher."

"Have you seen him since six o'clock?"

"No--I--I ain't," the woman answered. There was something in John's face which terrified her, though the mere absence of her son gave her no uneasiness.

"Go back, Helen," he said, quickly,--"go as far as that second house, or I shall not feel sure you are safe. Mrs. Nevins, we must look for Charley. I am afraid--he was in the lumber-yard this afternoon"--

John did not wait to hear the woman's shriek; he turned and ran from group to group, looking for the boy whom he had seen building block houses on the pile of sawdust; but the mother, pushing her baby into a neighbor's arms, ran up and down like a mad woman.

"My boy!" she cried; "Charley! Charley! He's in the fire,--my boy's in the fire!"

Tom Davis had heard the hurried words of the preacher, and the mother's cries roused all the manhood drink had left. He hesitated a moment, and then pushing Molly towards the cripple whose taunts still rung in his ears, "Take care of the brat!" he said, and pulling off his coat, which he wrapped about his head to guard himself from the falling boards, he stooped almost double, and with his left arm bent before his face, and his right extended to feel his way, he ran towards the fire, and disappeared in the blinding smoke.

Even Mrs. Nevins was silenced for a moment of shuddering suspense; and when she tossed her arms into the air again, and shrieked, it was because John Ward came towards her with Charley trotting at his side.

"You should have looked after the child," the preacher said sternly. "I found him on the other side of the yard, near the fire-engine."

Mrs. Nevins caught the boy in her arms in a paroxysm of rage and joy; and then she thought of Tom.

"Oh, preacher," she cried, "preacher! he's run in after him, Tom Davis has!"

"_There?_" John said, pointing to the fire. "G.o.d help him!"

There was no human help possible. Tom had run down between two long piles of boards, not yet in flames, but already a sheet of fire swept madly across the open s.p.a.ce. They could only look at each other, dumb with their own helplessness, and wait. How long this horror of expectation lasted no one knew, but at last, as if from the very mouth of h.e.l.l, Tom Davis came, staggering and swaying,--his singed coat still rolled about his head, and his hands stretched blindly out.

John Ward ran towards him, and even the cripple pressed forward to take his hand. But with unseeing eyes he stood a moment, and then fell forward on his face. They lifted him, and carried him back into the street, away from the glare of light; there were plenty of kindly hands and pitying words, for most of the crowd had gathered about him; even the men who had brought the engine followed, for their efforts to subdue the fire were perfectly futile.