The Dozen from Lakerim Part 10

Such of the academicians as had no cla.s.ses at that hour followed these champing chargers to the scene of the fire.

It turned out to be a woodshed, which was as black and useless as a burnt biscuit by the time the fire department arrived.

But the Volunteers had the pleasure of dropping a hose down the well of the owner of the late lamented woodshed, and pumping the well dry.

The Volunteers thus bravely extinguished three fence-posts that had caught fire from the woodshed, and then turned for home, proud in the consciousness of duty performed. They felt sure that they had saved the village from a second Chicago fire.

Jumbo said that the department ought not to be called the Volunteers, but the Crawfishes. B.J., who had a scientific turn of mind, said that he had an idea for a great invention.

"The world revolves from west to east at the rate of a thousand miles an hour," he said.

"I've heard so," broke in Jumbo, "but you can't believe everything you see in print."

B.J. brushed him aside, and went on:

"Now, all you've got to do is to invent a scheme for raising your fire-engine and your firemen up in the air a few feet, and holding them still while the earth revolves under them. Then you turn a kind of a wheel, or something, when the place you want to get to comes around, and there you are in a jiffy. It would beat the Empire State Express all hollow. Why, it would be faster even than an ice-boat!"

he exclaimed enthusiastically. "I guess I'll have to get that idea patented."

"But say, B.J.," said Bobbles, in a puzzled manner, "suppose your fire was in the other direction? You'd have to go clear around the world to get to the place."

"I didn't think of that," said B.J., dejectedly.

And thus one of the greatest inventions of the age was left uninvented.

But Tug had also been set to thinking by the snail-like Kingston firemen.

"What this place really needs," he said, "is some firemen that can run. They want more speed and less rheumatism. Now, if we fellows could only join the department we'd show 'em a few things."

"Why can't we?" said Punk, always ready to carry out another's suggestion.

"George Washington was a volunteer fireman," was History's ever-present reminder from the books.

The scheme took like wild-fire with the Dozen, and after a conference in which the twelve heads got as close together as twenty-four large feet would permit, it was decided to ask permission of the Academy Faculty and of the town trustees.

The Kingston Faculty was of the general opinion that it is ordinarily--though by no means always--the best plan to allow restless boys to carry out their own schemes. If the scheme is a bad one they will be more likely to be convinced of it by putting it into practice than by being told that it is bad, and forbidden to attempt it. So, after long deliberation, they consented to permit half a dozen of the larger Lakerim fellows to join the volunteer department.

Fires were not frequent, and most of the buildings of the village were so small that little risk was to be feared.

The trustees of the village saw little harm in allowing the academicians to drag their heavy trucks for them, and promised that they would not permit the boys to rush into any dangerous places.

In a short while, then, the half-dozen were full-fledged firemen, with red flannel shirts, rubber boots, and regulation hats. The Lakerimmers were so proud of their new honor that they wanted to wear their gorgeous uniforms in the cla.s.s-rooms. But the heartless Faculty put its foot down hard on this.

The very minute the six--Tug, Punk, Sleepy, B.J., and the Twins--were safely installed as Volunteers, it seemed that the whole town had suddenly become fire-proof.

The boys could neither study their lessons nor recite them with more than half a mind, for they had always one ear raised for the sound of the delightful fire-bell. They always hoped that when the fire would come it would be in the midst of a recitation; and Sleepy constantly failed to prepare himself at all, in the hope that at the critical moment he would be rescued from flunking by a call to higher duties. But fate was ironical, and after two or three weeks of this nerve-wearing existence the Volunteers began to lose hope.

One Sat.u.r.day afternoon, when the roads were frozen into ruts as hard and sharp as iron, and when the Dozen had just started forth to take a number of pretty girls to see a promising hockey game, the villainous old fire-bell began to call for help.

The half-dozen regretted for a moment that they had ever volunteered to be Volunteers; but they would not shirk their duty, and instantly dashed toward the shed where the fire department was stored. They were there long before any of the older Volunteers, and had a long, impatient wait. Then there were all manner of delays; breakages had to be repaired and axles greased before a start could be properly made.

But at last they were off, tearing down the rough roads at a speed that made the older firemen plead for mercy.

The alarm had come from a man who had been painting a church steeple, and had seen a cloud of smoke in the direction of the "Mitch.e.l.l place," a large farm-house some little distance out of the village limits.

There was a fine exhilaration about the run until they reached the edge of the town, and began to drag the bouncing, jouncing cart over the miserable country road. Still they tugged on, going slower and slower, and the older Volunteers letting go of the rope and falling by the wayside like the wounded at the hill of San Juan.

Finally even the half-dozen had to slacken speed, too, and walk, for fear of losing the whole fire department--the chief had already given out in exhaustion, and insisted upon climbing on one of the trucks and riding the rest of the way. But at length, somehow or other, the Kingston Volunteers reached the farm-house at a slow walk, their tongues almost hanging out of their mouths, and their breath coming in gasps.

Strange to say, there were no signs of excitement at the Mitch.e.l.l place, though a great cloud of black smoke poured from a huge hollow sycamore-tree that had been cut off about ten feet from the ground, and was used as a primitive smoke-house.

The Volunteers looked at this tree, and then at one another, without a word. Then Mr. Mitch.e.l.l came slowly toward his gate, and asked why he had been honored with such a visit.

The only one that had breath enough to say a word was the fire chief, who had ridden the latter part of the way. He explained the alarm, and asked the cause of the smoke.

Mr. Mitch.e.l.l drawled: "Wawl, I'm jest a-curin' some hams."

As they all pegged dismally homeward, the half-dozen thought that Mr. Mitch.e.l.l had also just about cured six Volunteers. And when the half-dozen took off their red flannel shirts that day, they no longer looked upon them as red badges of courage, but rather as a sort of penitentiary uniform.

The fire department of Kingston had such another long snooze that the half-dozen began now to rejoice in the hope that there would not be another fire before vacation-time. They had almost forgotten that they were Volunteers, and went about their studies and pastimes with the fine care-freedom of glorious boyhood.

Then came a cold wave suddenly out of the West--a tidal wave of bitter winds and blizzardy snow-storms, that sent the mercury down into the shoes of the thermometer.

Things froze up with a snap that you could almost hear.

It seemed that it would be impossible even to put a nose out of the warm rooms without hearing a sudden crackle, and seeing it drop to the ground, and the ears after it. The very stoves had to be coaxed and coddled to keep warm.

Jumbo said: "Why, I have to b.u.t.ton my overcoat around my stove, and feed it with coal in a teaspoon, to keep it from freezing to death!"

The academicians went to and from their cla.s.ses on the dead run, and even the staid professors scampered along the slippery paths with more thought of speed than of dignity.

That night was the coldest that the oldest inhabitant of Kingston could remember. The very winds seemed to be tearing madly about, trying to keep warm, and screaming with pain, they were so cold! Ugh!

my ears tingle to think of it. The Lakerimmers piled the coal high in their stoves, and piled their overcoats, and even the rugs from the floor, over their beds.

Sleepy, whose blood was so slow that he was never warm enough in winter and never very warm in summer, even spread all the newspapers he could find inside his bed, and crawled in between them, having heard that paper is one of the warmest of coverings. The journals crackled like, popcorn every time he moved; but he moved very little and it would have been a loud noise indeed that could have kept him awake.

At a very early hour, then, the Volunteers and the rest of the Dozen were as snug as bugs in rugs.

And then,--oh, merciless fate!--at the coldest and dismalest hour of the whole twenty-four, when the night is about over and the day is not begun, at about 3 A.M., what, oh, what! should sound, even above the howls of the wind and the rattlings of the windows and doors, but that fiend of a fire-bell!

It clanged and banged and clamored and boomed and pounded its way even through the harveyized armor-plate of the Lakerim ship of sleep.

Tug was the first to wake, and his heart almost stopped with horror of the time the old bell had chosen for making itself heard. Tug was a brave boy, and he had a high sense of responsibility; but he had also a high sense of the comfort of a good warm bed on a bitter cold night, and he lay there, his heart torn up like a battle-field, where the two angels of duty and evil fought bitterly. And he was perfectly willing to give them plenty of time to fight it out to a finish.

In another room of the dormitory there was another struggle going on, though it would be rather flattering to say that they were angels who were struggling. The Twins had wakened at the same moment, and each had pretended to be asleep at first. Then each had remembered that misery loves company, and each had jabbed the other in the ribs, at the same time.