CHAPTER IX

Spontaneous Combustion

Had the ground opened and disgorged the town, men, women and children could hardly have appeared upon the scene with more startling promptitude than they appeared within five minutes after Constance's discovery of the smoke. How they got there only those who manage to get to every fire before the alarm ceases to sound can explain, and, as usual, there arrived with them the over-officious, and the over-zealous.

As Constance and Eleanor rushed into the house, the multitude rushed across the grounds and followed them hotfoot, while one, more level-headed than his fellows, hastened to the nearest fire-box to turn in an alarm.

Meanwhile Mammy had also smelt the smoke, and as the girls ran through the front hall she came through the back one crying:

"Fo' de Lawd's sake wha' done happen? De house gwine burn down on top our haids?"

"Quick, Mammy. It's Eleanor's room," cried Constance as she flew up the stairs.

Mammy needed no urging. In one second she had grasped the situation and was up in Mrs. Carruth's room dragging forth such articles and treasures as she knew to be most valued and piling them into a blanket. There was little time to waste for the flames had made considerable headway when discovered and were roaring wildly through the upper floor when the fire apparatus arrived. Mrs. Carruth was out driving with a friend and Jean was off with her beloved Amy Fletcher.

Only those who have witnessed such a scene can form any adequate idea of the confusion which followed that outburst of smoke from Eleanor's windows. Men ran hither and thither carrying from the burning house whatever articles they could lay their hands upon, to drop them from the windows to those waiting below to catch them. Firemen darted in and out, apparently impervious to either flames or smoke, directing their hose where the streams would prove most effectual and sending gallons of water upon the darting flames. The fact that the fire had started in the third-story saved many articles from destruction by the flames, although the deluge of water which flooded the house and poured down the stairways like miniature Niagaras speedily ruined what the flames spared.

Eleanor rushed toward her room but was quickly driven back by a burst of flames and smoke that nearly suffocated her, while Constance flew to Jean's and her own room, meanwhile calling directions to Mammy. Five minutes, however, from the time they entered the house they were forced to beat a retreat, encountering as they ran Miss Jerusha Pike, a neighbor who never missed any form of excitement or interesting occurrence in her neighborhood.

"What can I do? Have you saved your ma's clothes? Did you get out that mirror that belonged to your great-grandmother?" she cried, as she laid a detaining hand upon Constance's arm.

"I don't know, Miss Pike. Come out quick. It isn't safe to stay here another second. We must let the men save what they can. Come."

"No! No! I _must_ save your grandmother's mirror. I know just where it hangs. You get out quick. I won't be a second. Go!"

"Never mind the mirror, there are other things more valuable than that," cried Eleanor as she tugged at the determined old lady's arm. But Miss Pike was not to be deterred and rushed away to the second story in spite of them.

"She'll be burned to death! I _know_ she will," wailed Constance, as a man ran across the hall calling:

"Miss Carruth, Miss Constance, where are you? You must get out of here instantly!"

"Oh, Mr. Stuyvesant, Miss Pike has gone up to mother's room and I must go after her."

"You must do nothing of the sort. Come out at once both of you. I'll see to her when I've got you to a place of safety," and without more ado Hadyn Stuyvesant hurried them both from the house to the lawn, where a motley crowd was gathered, and their household goods and chattels were lying about in the utmost confusion, while other articles, escorted by various neighbors, were being borne along the street to places of safety. One extremely proper and precise maiden lady was struggling along under an armful of Mr. Carruth's dress-shirts and pajamas brought forth from nobody knew where. A portly matron, with the tread of a general, followed her with a flatiron in one hand and a tiny doll in the other, while behind her a small boy of eight staggered beneath the weight of a wash boiler.

"Where is Mammy? O _where_ is Mammy?" cried Eleanor, clasping her hands and looking toward the burning building.

"Here me! Here me!" answered Mammy's voice as she hurried toward them with a great bundle of rescued articles. "I done drug dese yer t'ings f'om de burer in yo' ma's room an' do you keep tight fas' 'em 'twell I come back. Mind now what I'se telling' yo' kase dere's t'ings in dar dat she breck her heart ter lose. I'se gwine back fer sumpin' else."

"O Mammy! Mammy, _don't go_. You'll be burned to death," cried Constance, laying her hand upon Mammy's arm to restrain her.

"You mustn't Mammy! You mustn't," echoed Eleanor.

"Stay here with the girls, Mammy, and let me get whatever it is you are bent upon saving," broke in Hadyn Stuyvesant.

"Aint no time for argufying," cried Mammy, her temper rising at the opposition. "You chillun stan' _dar_ an' tek kere ob _dat_ bundle, lak I tell yo' an' yo', Massa Stuyv'sant, come 'long back wid me," was the ultimatum, and, laughing in spite of the gravity of the situation, Hadyn Stuyvesant followed Mammy whom he ever afterward called the General.

As they hurried back to the kitchen entrance the one farthest removed from the burning portion of the building, Mammy's eyes were seemingly awake to every thing, and her tongue loosed of all bounds. As they neared the dining-room someone was dropping pieces of silver out of the window to someone else who stood just below it with skirts outspread to catch the articles.

"Ain' dat de very las' bit an' grain o' nonsense?" panted Mammy. "Dey's a-heavin' de silver plate outen de winder, an' bangin' it all ter smash stidder totin' it froo' de back do', and fo' Gawd's sake look dar, Massa Stuyv'sant! Dar go de' lasses!" cried Mammy, her hands raised above her head as her words ended in a howl of derision, for, overcome with excitement the person who was dropping the pieces of silver had deliberately turned the syrup-jug bottom-side up and deluged the person below with the contents. Had he felt sure that it would have been his last Hadyn Stuyvesant could not have helped breaking into peals of laughter, nor was the situation rendered less absurd by the sudden reappearance of Miss Pike clasping the treasured mirror to her breast and crying:

"Thank heaven! Thank heaven I'm alive and have _saved_ it. _Where_, where are those dear girls that I may deliver this priceless treasure into their hands?"

"Out yonder near the hedge, Miss Pike. I'm thankful you escaped. They are much concerned about you. Better get along to them quick; I'm under Mammy's orders," answered Hadyn when he could speak.

Off hurried the zealous female while Hadyn Stuyvesant followed Mammy who was fairly snorting with indignation.

"Dat 'oman certain'y _do_ mak' me mad. Dat lookin' glass! Huh! I reckons when Miss Jinny git back an' find what happen she aint goin' ter study 'bout no lookin' glasses. No suh! She be studyin' 'bout whar we all gwine put our _haids_ dis yere night. An' dat's what _I_ done plan fer," concluded Mammy laying vigorous hold of a great roll of bedding which she had carried to a place of safety just outside the kitchen porch. "Please, suh, tek' holt here an' holp me get it out yander ter de stable, I'se done got a sight o' stuff out dere a-reddy," and sure enough Mammy, unaided, had carried enough furniture, bedding and such articles as were absolutely indispensable for living, out to the stable to enable the family to "camp out" for several days, and with these were piled the garments hastily snatched from the clothes-lines, Baltie mounting guard over all. Mrs. Carruth had not been so very far wrong when she told Mammy she believed she could move the house if necessity arose.

Meanwhile Miss Pike and her rescued mirror had reached the hedge, the girls breathing a sigh of relief when they saw her bearing triumphantly down upon them.

"There! There! If I never do another deed as long as I live I shall feel that I have _not_ lived in vain! What _would_ your poor mother have said had she returned to find this priceless heirloom destroyed," she cried, as she rested the mirror against a tree trunk and clasped her hands in rapture at sight of it.

"Perhaps mother _might_ ask first whether _we_ had been rescued," whispered Constance, but added quickly, "_there_ is mother now. O I wonder who told her," for just then a carriage was driven rapidly to the front gate and as the girls ran toward it Mrs. Carruth stepped quickly from it. She was very white and asked almost breathlessly, "Girls, girls, is anyone hurt? Are you _all_ safe? Where's Mammy?"

"We are all safe mother, Mammy is here. Don't be frightened. We have done everything possible and the fire is practically out now," said Constance, passing her arm about her mother who was trembling violently.

"Don't be alarmed, mother. It isn't really so dreadful as it might have been; it truly isn't," said Eleanor soothingly. "Loads of things have been saved."

"Yes, Mammy has outgeneraled us all, Mrs. Carruth," cried Hadyn Stuyvesant, who now came hurrying upon the scene. "I guess she has shown more sense than all the rest of us put together, for she's kept her head."

"And oh, my dear! My dear, if all else were lost there is one invaluable treasure spared to you! Come with me. I saved it for you with my own hands. Come!" cried Miss Pike, as she slipped her arm through Mrs. Carruth's and hurried her willy-nilly across the lawn.

There was the little round mirror in its quaint old-fashioned frame leaning against the tree and reflecting all the weird scene in its shining surface, and there, too, directly in front of it, strutted a lordly game cock which belonged to the Carruths' next door neighbor. How he happened to be there, in the midst of so much excitement and confusion no one paused to consider, but as Miss Pike hurried poor Mrs. Carruth toward the spot, Sir Chanticleer's burnished ruff began to rise and the next instant there was a defiant squawk, a frantic dash of brilliantly iridescent feathers, and the cherished heirloom lay shattered beneath the triumphant game-cock's feet as he voiced a long and very jubilant crow.

It was the stroke needed, for in spite of the calamity which had overtaken her this was too much for Mrs. Carruth's sense of humor and she collapsed upon the piano stool which stood conveniently at hand, while Miss Pike bewailed Chanticleer's deed until one might have believed it had been her own revered ancestor's mirror which had been shattered by him.

Just then Mammy came hurrying upon the scene and was quick enough to grasp the situation at a glance.

"Bress de Lawd, Honey, ain' I allers tol' ye' chickens got secon' sight? Dat roos'er see double suah. He see himself in dat lookin' glass an' bus' it wide open, an' he see we-all need ter laf stidder cry, an' so he set out ter mek us."

At sight of her Mrs. Carruth stretched forth both hands like an unhappy child and was gathered into her faithful old arms as she cried:

"But oh, Mammy; Mammy, the insurance; the insurance. If I had _only_ been able to pay it yesterday."

"Huh! Don't you fret ober de 'surance. Jis clap yo' eyes on _dat_," and Mammy thrust into her Miss Jinny's hands a paper which she hastily drew from the bosom of her frock.