The Knights of the White Shield Part 28

"Yes, all you want," said Aunt Stanshy, who, leaving her coffee-pot, her pan of fried potatoes, and batch of biscuit on the kitchen stove, had mounted the stairs to wake the sleepy Charlie.

"Boys will soon be here to make it."

"I warrant you! They will make their ice-cream before shoveling the folks'

paths at home."

It looked so, for half a dozen boys were out in the yard by eight o'clock, shouting "ice-cream" to Charlie, who had not finished his breakfast.

With the help of Aunt Stanshy's "essences" enough snow was flavored to meet the demands of customers, who, quickly notified, quickly appeared, bringing the contents of all the nail-boxes at their homes. Even Aunt Stanshy was prevailed upon to buy a dish, and she consistently paid cash for it.

Her boarder, Will Somers, was induced to promise more extensive patronage.

"Will, we all think you a first-rate feller," said the artful president; "and just to help us out at the fair, couldn't you take your meals at our restaurant? Our mothers say they will cook us things--steak, you know, and so on."

"Y--e--s, I will try it for--the present."

For some reason the "things" said to have been promised--"steak, you know, and so on," did not arrive. Will gave out soon after noon the first day.

"Aunt Stanshy, I shall starve if I stay there," said Will, appearing at her pantry door; "and if I didn't starve, they would kill me with their abominable 'cream' that they make me buy, though they say it is at a reduced price."

The restaurant was given up very soon. The president said that people had left the sea-side for the city, and they could hardly expect enough home trade to make it pay.

Pip thought he could make his table pay if he had some flowers to set it off. But that was not all; he was envious of others' success. The fair had been characterized by the usual amount of "human nature" displayed on such occasions, and Pip now exhibited his peculiarities. For ten cents he bought a few white flowers at a hot-house, and then thought he would get ahead of the boys and be at the barn at an early hour, making sure for himself any possible customers.

"To give all an equal chance," declared the president, "to make it the same for those who get up early and those who lie abed, the barn will be open at nine o'clock, except on holidays, when we will accommodate the public at an earlier hour."

Pip thought he would be on hand by eight one morning. He would then be sure to catch any "nail custom," as that was a cla.s.s apt to be astir early, hunting up currency before other people had a chance at it. But the weather had stiffened since the storm. It was too cold to be agreeable, and even the nail-customers, usually so early at the barn, were now at home hugging the kitchen stove. Pip stood alone at the grand flower table.

His blossoms lay unsought upon the table.

"Pip! Pip!"

It was the governor down in the yard.

"We are going to see them skate on the pond back of the mill. Come, go!"

Pip could hardly be coming and going at the same time, but he left his table and left his flowers. That day, the cold increased steadily.

"It is nippin' cold," said Aunt Stanshy to a neighbor, and what did Jack Frost do but take out his nippers and clap them on Pip's flowers! The next morning, Pip found a little heap of frozen petals on the "flower-table."

He could no more make them into flowers than if they had been petals of snow!

That day, "owing to the weather," the "Fair" was closed. The boys divided the little heap of cash and the large heap of nails, and each knight took his share. The club now ceased to have an active existence. It became like any other stick that is laid aside and set up in the corner. It seemed as if the knights had forgotten that they belonged to a club whose expressive t.i.tle suggested energetic movement.

CHAPTER XVI.

THE FIRE.

Will Somers belonged to the "Cataract," which was not a "steamer," but a hand-engine. To belong to the "Cataract" it was necessary to own a red flannel shirt, a good pair of lungs, and a nimble pair of legs. The shirt--did that mean fire? The lungs enabled one to do all the "hollering"

that might be necessary. The legs were still more essential, that the engine might move with proper speed to a fire, and this was at a neck-breaking pace. As the engine company had many alarms to answer, some of them purposely raised to enable the company to "show off"--so Simes Badger said--the legs of a Cataract-boy were not the least valuable of his fire-apparatus. And then it did seem as if the company all took a fiendish delight in going "like mad" by the homes of old women and all single ladies like Miss Persnips, tossing their red helmets--I omitted this essential piece of property--directing at the windows defiant glances, and all the while their sharp, cracked engine-bell went up and down, over and over, as if it were an insane acrobat.

"Fire! Fire!" screamed a female voice, one afternoon. The screamer was Miss Persnips.

"Where, where?" shouted Simes Badger.

"O, there, there! I know it must be," was the answer.

That was all Simes wanted, and especially as Mr. Walton was holding a service at St. John's. If Simes could excite a neighborhood, and also create a sensation in church, he was happy. He now rushed into the church-vestibule, and then into the bell-tower, and seizing the rope pulled it as if the small-pox had broken out and attacked every other person in the community. Simes being the one to make the bell boom, "Danger!" he gave evidence that this one person certainly was not afflicted with the malady.

In just two minutes from the first rap on the bell, Will Somers, leaving behind him a caldron of boiling herbs, was at the door of the engine-house, and unlocking it, had seized the long rope attached to the engine. There were enough who joined him to rush out into the street the clumsy machine. There they received large re-enforcements.

"Where is the fire?" bawled the foreman.

n.o.body knew.

"Where is the fire, Simes?" the bell-ringer was asked as the engine rattled toward the church-door.

"Miss Persnips!"

Simes meant not the place of the fire, but the source of the information.

"Miss Persnips's house is afire!" shouted the engine-men. It was enough.

They rushed for that lady's place, and seeing a column of smoke above her roof, concluded that its source was directly below, and stopping at a pump this side of her house, ran their hose down into the well. They were working the brakes at a lively rate and preparing for a thorough bombardment of the building, when fortunately she appeared, screaming, "Fire is over there, beyond the woods!"

The smoke had now shifted its coa.r.s.e, and rolling away from Miss Persnips's, hung in a dark, sullen cloud above the forest but a little way off.

Away went the engine and its allies, sweeping along men and boys, and also every able-bodied member of the Up-the-Ladder Club whose legs could carry him. Down past shops and houses and farms rushed the crowd, pulling along several fat men who had grasped the rope. By and by they came to a farmer in a red shirt who pointed his spectacles at them across the top-rail of the fence at the right of the road.

"Where's the' fire, squire?" excitedly asked the foreman.

"Fire? I don't know of fire," replied the farmer, coolly, "at leastways, any fire that is worth puttin' out. I have got a bonfire in back here, and it was purty big, and its smoke you may have seen in the village. If you want to stretch your muscle and soak your hose--and that is about all you engine-people do--you may come and play on my bonfire."

"Come and play on _you_" shouted an angry voice.

"Put out _him_" screamed another.

"Play away, One," bawled a third, giving the number of the engine as known at fires.

There was now a half-joking, half-angry comment on the "squire," and there were enough there desirous of wetting down, not his bonfire, but its builder. The foreman quieted the strife and the "Cataract" started for home. A willingness was expressed to moisten "Miss Persnips's place"

because she had misled them, though it was unintentional on her part.

Some one sang out, "She can't tell about smoke. She has only one good eye, and t'other one is a gla.s.s eye."

This put them all in a good-natured mood, and the "Cataract" went home.

Soon there was a fire serious enough to satisfy the most ardent of the company. A milder style of weather had been prevailing after the late snow-storm. The sun had put extra coal on its fires and melted all the snow. Then came a wind that blew continuously two days, drying the grounds and the buildings.