Chapter 8

Here they come now. Those are the Caledonian. Tell by the truck .... Do you think so? I don't think they're anything so very much. Nix. You'll never do it. Look at the way they run with their heads up. That shows they're all winded. Look at the clumsy way they got the ladder off the wagon. Blap! The judge thought it was coming through the boards on him. Oh, pretty good, pretty good, but you just wait till you see our boys. Look at the fool hanging there on the ladder waiting till the time is announced. Isn't that Caledonia all over? Yah! Come down! Come down! What is it? Twenty-five seconds. What's the record? Twenty-four and four-fifths? Oh, well, it isn't so bad for Caledonia, but you just what our boys do. Hear those yaps from Caledonia yell! If there's anything I despise it is for a man to whoop and holler and make a public spectacle of himself. Who's this? Oh, the Radnors. They're out of it. Look at them. Pulling every which way. That ladder's too straight up and down. Twenty-seven and two-fifths. What did I tell you?... What time does your train go? Well, why don't you and your wife come take supper with us? Why didn't you look us up noon-time?... I could have told you better than that. (They went to the Ladies' Aid dinner.) Well, we shan't have much, I expect, but we'll try and scrape up something more filling than layer-cake. The idea of expecting to feed hungry people on layer-cake! It's an imposition.... I didn't notice which one it was. Doesn't matter any way. Only twenty-eight. Ah, here are our boys. They've got blue silk running-breeches on. Well, maybe it is sateen. Let the women folks alone for knowing sateen from silk a mile off. How much a yard did you say it was? Notice the way they start with their hands on the ground, just like the pictures on the sporting page of the Sunday newspapers. Here they come. Oh, I hope they'll win. That's Charley Rodehaver in front. Run! Oh, why don't you run? Come on! Come on! Come on! Come on! COME ON! COME ON! COME O--O-oh! See Dan skip up that ladder! Go it, Dan! Go it, old boy! Hooray-ay! Hooray-ay, ay! What's the time? Twenty-four! Twenty--four flat! BROKE THE RECORD! Hooray-ay-ay! Where's Caledonia now? Where's Caledonia now? Oh, I'm so glad our boys won. There goes the Caledonia chief. I'll bet he feels like thirty cents, Spanish. Ya-a-a-ah! Ya-a-a-ah! Where's Caledonia now? They can't beat that, the other fellows can't, and it's our trophy for keeps.... Oh, some crank in the next row. “Wouldn't I please sit down and not obstruct the view.” Guess he comes from Caledonia. Looks like it. You stand up, too, why don't you? Those planks are terribly hard.... I didn't notice. Yes, that wasn't so bad. Twenty-five and two-fifths. But it's our trophy. There goes Dan now. Hey, Dan! Good boy, Dan! Wave your handkerchief at him. Hooray-ay-ay! Good boy, Dan!

Next is a wet race. Now look out. Let's see what the program says: “Run seventy-five yards to structure, on top of which an empty barrel has been placed with spout outlet near top. Barrel to be filled with water by means of buckets from reservoir”--That big tin-lined box opposite is the reservoir. They are filling it now with a hose attached to the water-plug yonder--“until water issues from spout.” What are they all laughing at? Which one? Oh, but isn't she mad? Talk about a wet hen. Why, Charley, the hose got away from the man that was filling the reservoir and the lady was splashed. Why don't you use your eyes and see what's going on and not be bothering me to tell you? Ip! There it goes again. Oh, ho! ho! ho! hee! hee! didn't I tell you it would be fun? See it run out of his sleeves.... I always get to coughing when I laugh as hard as that. Oh, dear me! Makes the tears come.

These are the fellows from Luxora. Oh, the clumsy things! Let the ladder get away from them, and it fell and hit that man in the second row right on the head. Hope it didn't hurt him much. See 'em scurry with the water buckets. Aw, get a move on! Get a move! Why, what makes them so slow? “Water, water!” Well, I should think as much. Not for themselves though. Those fellows at the bottom of the ladder are catching it, aren't they? Oh, pshaw, they don't mind it. They get it worse than that at a real fire when they aren't half so well fixed for it. Why, is there no bottom to that barrel at all? Why, look!... Say, the judge forgot to close the valve. There's a hose connected with the bottom of the barrel to run the water off after each trial and he's forgotten to--... Well, isn't that too bad! All that work for nothing. I suppose they'll let them try it over again.... That man must have got a pretty hard rap. They're carrying him out. His head's all bloody.... Wapatomicas, I guess. Yes, Wapatomicas. I hope the valve's closed this time. Whope! did you see that? One fellow got hit with a water bucket and it was about half-full. It's running out of the spout. Yes, and it's falling on those people right where you wanted to sit. Hear the girls squeal. Talk about your fun. I don't want any better fun than this. Look at 'em come down the ladder just holding the sides with their hands. They couldn't do that if the ladder was dry.

Ah, here's our crowd. Come on! Come on! Come on! COME ON! Oh, don't be so slow with those buckets! Aren't they fine? Say, they don't care if they do spill a drop or two. Why. Why, what are they coming down for? It isn't running out of the spout yet. Come back! COME BACK! Oh, pshaw! Just threw it away by being in too much of a hurry. That judge looks funny, doesn't he, with a rubber overcoat on and the sun shining? See, he's telling them: “One bucket more.” They'll let 'em have another trial, of course.... No? Oh, that's an outrage. That' s not fair. The Caledonias will get it now.... Yes, sir, they did get it. Oh, well, accidents will happen. What? “Where's Caledonia now?” Well, they got it by a fluke. What say?... Well only for--Oh, pshaw! Now, don't tell me that because I was there and--Well, I say they didn't .... I know better, they didn't.... Oh, shut up. You don't know what you're talking about. I tell you--Now, Mary, don't you interfere. I'm not quarreling. I'm just telling this gentleman back of me that--Well, all right, if you're going to cry. If there was any fouling done it was the Caledonias that did it, though.

The next is where they “run three hundred feet from the judges' stand, raise ladder, hose company to couple to hydrant, break coupling in hose and put on nozzle, scale ladder, and fill twenty-five gallon barrel.” Only the Caledonias, and our boys are entered in this. Now we'll see which is the best. All right, Mary, I won't say a word.... Say, for country-jakes, those Caledonias didn't do so badly. I give them that much. Look at the water fly! I'll bet those folks near the judges' stand wish they'd brought their umbrellas. Now you see why these are the best seats, don't you? I told you I'd been to Firemen's Tournaments before. What? You'll have to talk louder than that if you want me to hear with all this noise.... Oh, that'll be all right. They'll be so hungry they won't notice it.

Here, be careful how you wabble that hose around. Good thing they turned the water off at the plug just when they did or we'd have been--Here's our company. Where's Caledonia now? Eh? Pretty work! Pretty work! Say, do you know that hose full of water's heavy? Now watch Riley. Riley's the one that's got the nozzle. Always up to some monkeyshine. Ah! See him? See him? Oh, is n't he soaking them? Oh-ho! Ho! Ho! ha! ha! hee-hee! Yip.

Blame clumsy fool!... P-too! Yes, in my mouth and in my ears and down the back of my neck. All over. Running out of my sleeves. Everything I got on is just ruined. Completely ruined. Come on. Let's go home. There's nothing more to see, much. Aw, come on. Well, stay if you want to, but I'm going home, and get some dry clothes on me. You get me to go to another Firemen's Tournament and you'll know it. Look at that monkey from Caledonia laughing at me. For half a cent I'd go up and smack his face for him.... Aw, let up on your “Where's Caledonia now?” Give us a rest. Well, are you coming, you folks?... Kind of a fizzle this year, wasn't it?

However, after supper, with dry clothes on, it isn't so bad. The streets are packed. All the firemen are parading and shouting: “Who? Who? Who are we?” The Caledonias got one more prize than our boys. Well, why shouldn't they? Entered in three more events. I don't see as that's anything to brag of or to carry brooms about. All the fife-and-drum corps are out, and the bands are all playing “Hiawatha” at once, but not together. Not all either. There's one band in front of Hofmeyer's playing “Oh, Happy Day! That Fixed my Choce.” That's funny: to play a hymn-tune in front of a beer-saloon. Hofmeyer seems to think it's all right. He's inviting them in to have something. “Took the hint?” I don't understand.... Oh, is that so? I didn't know there were other words to that tune.

See that woman with four little ones. Her husband's carrying two more. “I want to go howm. Why cain't we gow howm? I do' want to gow howm pretty soon. I want to gow na-ow!” Eh, Mary, how would you like to lug them around all day and then stand up in the cars all the way home?

Well, good-by. Hope you had a nice time. Give my regards to all the folks. Don't be in such a rush, my friend.... Oh, did you see? It must be the man that got hit on the head with the ladder. Taking him home on a stretcher. Gee! That's tough. Skull fractured, eh? Dear! Dear! I hear they have been keeping company a long time, and were to have been married soon. No wonder she cried and took on so. Poor girl! Yes, it's the women that suffer .... Oh, quite a day for accidents. I didn't mind, though, after I had changed my clothes. I took some quinine, and I guess I'll be all right. Lucky you got a seat. Well, you're off at last. Good-by. Remember me to all. Good-by.

Well, thank goodness, that's over. Another ten minutes of them and wouldn't have--Well, Mary, what else could I do but ask them home after he told me what they didn't have to eat at the Ladies' Aid?... It was all right. Plenty good enough. Better than they have at home and I'll bet on it. The table looked beautiful. I'm glad the Tournament doesn't come but once a year. I'm about ready to drop.

THE DEVOURING ELEMENT

Mr. Silverstone was gloomily considering whether he had not better blow out the lights in the New York One Price Clothing Store, and lock up for the night. Kerosene was fifteen cents a gallon, and not a customer had been in since supper-time. Business was “ofle, simbly ofle.”

The streets were empty. There were lights only in the barber shop where one patron was being lathered while two mandolins and a guitar gave a correct imitation of two house-flies and a bluebottle in Riley's where, in default of other occupation, Mr. Riley was counting up; in Oesterle's, where a hot discussion was going on as to whether Christopher Columbus was a Dutchman or a Dago, and in Miller's, where Tom Ball was telling Tony, who impassively wiped the perforated brass plate let into the top of the bar, that he, Tom Ball, “coul' lick em man ill Logan coun'y.”

Lamps shone in every parlor, where little girls labored with: “And one and two, three and one and two, three,” occasionally coming out to look at the clock to see if the hour was any nearer being up than it was five minutes ago. They also shone in sitting-rooms, where boys looked fiercely at “X2 +2Xy+y2,” mothers placidly darned stockings, and fathers, Weekly Examiner in hand, patiently struggled to disengage from “boiler-plate” and bogus news about people snatched from the jaws of death by the timely use of Dr. McKinnon's Healing Extract of Timothy and Red-top, items of real news, such as who was sick and what ailed them, who cut his foot with the ax while splitting stove-wood, and where the cake sale by the Rector's Aid of Grace P.E. would be held next week.

At the prayer-meeting, Uncle Billy Nicholson was giving in his experience and had just got to that part about: “Sometimes on the mountaintop, and sometimes in the valley, but still, nevertheless--” when, all of a sudden, something happened.

The mandolins stopped with a jerk. Mr. Riley stood tranced at: “And ten is thirty-five.” Mr. Ball was stricken dumb in the celebration of his own great physical powers. The crowd in Oesterle's forgot Columbus, and were as men beholding a ghost. The drowsy congregation sat up rigid, and Mr. Silverstone gave a guilty start. He had been thinking of that very thing!

The next instant, front doors were wrenched open, and the street echoed with the sound of windows being raised. Fathers and sons rushed out on the front porch, followed by little girls, to whom any excuse to stop practising was like a plank to a drowning man.

They had heard aright. Up by the Soldiers' Monument fell the clump of tired feet, and upon the air floated the wild alarm of--.

“FIRE! Pooh-ha! FIRE! Poof! FIRE!”

Mat King, the assistant chief, kicked off his slippers, and swiftly laced up his shoes, grabbed his speaking-trumpet and his helmet, and tore out of the house. If he could only get to the engine-house before Charley Lomax, the chief! But Charley was the lone customer in the barber's char. With the lather on one side of his face, he clapped on his hat and broke for the firebell, four doors below.

“Where's it at?”

“FIRE! Pooh-ha! FIRE! Sm-poohl Fi--(gulp)--FIRE!”

“It's Linc Hoover. Hay, Linc! Where's the fire?”

“FIRE! Pooh-ha! FIRE! ha, ha! FIRE!”

“Hay, Linc! Where's it at? Tell me and I'll run. Hay! Where's it at?”

“FIRE! Swope's be--(gulp) Swope's barn. FIRE!”

“Which Swope? Henry or the old man?”

“FIRE! Pooh! J. K. Swope. Whoo-ha, whooh-ha! Out out on West End Avenue. Poof!”

The news thus being passed, the fresher runners scampered ahead, bawling: “FOY-URRR' FOY-URRR! and Linc, the hero, slowed down, gasping for breath and spitting cotton.

“Whew!” he whistled, gustily, his arms dropping and his whole frame collapsing. “Gee! I'm 'bout tuckered. Sm-pooh! Sm-pooh! Run all th' way f'm--sm-ha, sm-ha!--run all th' way f'm--mouth's all stuck together--p'too! ha! Pooh! Fm West End Avenue and Swo--Swope's. Gee! I'm hot's flitter.”

“Keep y' coat on when you're all of a prespiration, that way. How'd it ketch?”

“Ount know. 'S comin' by there an' I--whoof! I smelt smoke and--Gosh! I'm all out o' breath--an' I looked an' I je-e-est could see a light--wisht I had a drink o' somepin' to rench mum mouth out. Whew! Oh, laws! An' it was Swope's barn and I run in an' opened the door, didn't stop to knock or nung, an' I hollered out: 'Yib barn's afire!' an' he run out in his sockfeet, an' he says: 'My Lord!' he says. 'Linc,' he says, 'run git the ingine an' I putt.” Linc drew in a long, tremulous breath like a man that has looked on sorrow.

“Why 'n't you--”

“Betchy 't was tramps,” interrupted a bystander. “Git in the haymow an' think they got to have their blamed old pipe a-goin'--”

“Cigarettes, more likely,” said another. “More darn devilment comes from cigarettes--”

“Why'n't you--”

“Ount know nung 'bout tramps,” said Linc. “All I seen was the fire. I was a-comin' long a-past there an' I smelt the smoke an' thinks I--What say?”

“Why'n't you telefoam down?”

Linc, the hero, shrunk a foot. “I gosh!” he admitted, “I never thought to.”

“Jist'a' telefoamed, you could 'a' saved yourself all that--”

“Ain't they weltin' the daylights out o' that bell? All foolishness! Now they're ringin' the number--one, two, three, four. Yes, sir, that's up in the West End. You goin'? Come on, then.”

“No, Frank, I can't let you go. You've got your lessons to get. Well, now, mother, make up your mind if you're comin' along. Cora, what on earth are you doing out here in the night air with nothing around you? Now, you mosey right back into that parlor, and don't you make a move off that piano-stool till your hour's up. Do you hear me? No. Frank. I told you once you couldn't go and that ends it. Stop your whining! I can't have you running hither and yon all hours of the night, and we not know where you are. Well, hurry up, then, mother. Take him in with you. Oh, just throw a shawl over your head. Nobody 'll see you, or if they do they won't care.” The apparatus trundles by, the bells on the trucks tolling sadly as the striking gear on the rear axle engages the cam. A hurrying throng scuffles by in the gloom. The tolling grows fainter, the throng thinner.

“Good land! Is she going to be all night? Wish 't I hadn't proposed it. That's the worst of taking a woman anyplace. Fuss and fiddle by the hour in front of the looking-glass. Em! (Be all over by the time we get there) Oh, Em! Em!... EM! (Holler my head offl) EM!.... Well, why don't you answer me? Well, I didn't hear you. How much long--Oh, I know about-- 'Hour' you mean.... Oh, how do you do, Mrs. Conklin? Hello, Fred. Pleased to meet you, Miss Shoemaker. Yes, I saw in the paper you were visiting your sister. This your first visit to our little burg? Yes, we think it's quite a place. You see, we're trying to make your stay as interesting as possible.... Oh, no, not altogether on your account. No, no. Ha! Ha-ha-ha! Hum! ah!... Well, yes, if she ever gets done primping up. Oh, there you are. Miss Shoemaker, let me make you acquainted with my wife. Now, you girls'll have to get a move on if you want to see anything.”

The male escorts grasp the ladies' arms and shove them ahead, that being the only way if you are ever going to get any place. The women gasp and pant and make a great to-do.

“Ooh! Wait till I get my breath. Will! Weeull! Don't go so fay-ust! Oooh! I can't stand it. Oh, well, you're a man.”

But when they turn the corner that gives them a good view of the blaze, fluttering great puffs of flame, and hear the steady crackle and snapping, as it were, of a great popper full of pop-corn, they, too, catch the infection, and run with a loud swashing and slatting of skirts, giggling and squealing about their hair coming down.

In the waving orange glare the crowd is seen, shifting and moving. It seems impossible for the onlookers to remain constant in one spot. The chief, Charley Lomax, is gesticulating with wide arm movements. He puts his speaking-trumpet to his mouth. “Yoffemoffemoffemoffemoffi” he says.

“Wha-at?” the men halloo back.

“Yoffemoffemoffemoffemoff.”

“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. Nobody 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 passing 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.