Back Home

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.

Wandering about one cannot fail to encounter what the gallant fire-laddies have rescued from the devouring element. There is the piano with a deep scratch across the upper part, and the top lid hanging by one hinge. It caught in the door, and the boys were kind of in a hurry. There is the parlor carpet, plucked up by the roots, as it were; and two tubs, the washboard and a bag of clothes-pins; a stuffed chair, with three casters gone, the coffee-pot, a crayon enlargement, a winter overcoat, a blanket, a pile of old dresses, the screw-driver and a paper of tacks in the colander, the couch with a triangular rip in the cover, the coal-scuttle, a pile of dishes, the ax and wood-saw, a fancy pillow, the sewing-machine with the top gone, the wash-boiler, the basket of dirty clothes, with the stove-shaker and the parlor clock in together, and a heap of books, all spraddled and sprawled every which way. Upon this pitiful mound sits Mrs. Swope with her baby sound asleep upon her bosom. She mingles her tears with the sustaining tea that Mrs. Farley has made for her. Swope, still in his socks and with his wife's shoulder-cape upon him, caught up somehow, is trying to soothe her. He is as mad as a hornet, and doesn't dare to show it. All this furniture he had insured. It was all old stuff their folks had given them. If the gallant fire-laddies had been as discreet as they were zealous, they would have let the furniture go, and Swope and his wife would have had an entire, brand-new outfit. As it is, who can ever make that junk look like anything any more?

What's this coming up the road? Jumbo Lee and his friends with the other hose-reel. Now they will connect it with the hydrant, and have water a-plenty to save the house. Now the fellows are coming down from the ladder. Cistern's empty, I suppose. The other reel didn't come any too soon. How the roof steams! Or is it smoking?

“Don't stand around here with that reel! Up to that water-plug. Farther up the street. Front o' Cummins's.”

Jumbo crams another cracker into his mouth and speeds away, hunching the patient, unresenting air with his elbows.

Ah! See—that little flicker of flame on the roof! Do, for pity's sake, hurry up with that connection! The roof is really burning. See? They are trying to chop away the burning place. But there's another! And another!

A-a-ah! Hooray-ay! Connection's made! Now you'll see something. Out of the way there! One side! One side! Up you go!... Wha-at? Is that the best they can do? Why, it won't run out of the nozzle at all when it's up on the roof. Not a drop. Feeble little dribble when it's on the ground-level. There's your water-works for you. It is a good long way from the fire-plug I know, but there ought to be more pressure than that. Oh, pshaw! If we only had the old hand-engine! “Up with her! Down with her!” Have that fire out in no time. The house will have to go now. Too bad!

Somebody in the second story is rescuing property from the devouring element. He has just tossed out a wash-bowl and pitcher. Luckily they both fell on the sod and rolled apart. He takes down the roller-shade and flings it out. The lace curtains follow. They catch on the edge of the veranda roof, and languidly wave there as for some holiday. Bed-clothes issue and pillows hurtle out. What's he doing now? No use. No use. You can't get the mattress out of that window. A waste-paper basket, a rag rug, a brush and comb—as fast as his hands can fly he's throwing out things.

The women began to whimper.

“Oh, the poor man! The roof will fall in on him! He'll smother to death! Oh, why doesn't somebody go tell him to come away? Not you! Don't you think of such a trick! Oh, why does he risk his life for a lot of trash I wouldn't have around the house?”

The smoke oozes out of the open window. It must be choking in there. For a long time no jettison of household goods appears. Perhaps the man, whoever he is, has seen his peril and fled while yet it was possible to flee. Ah, but suppose he has been overcome and lies there huddled in a heap, never to rouse again? Is there none to save him? Is there none? Ah! A couple of collars and a magazine flutter out into the light! He is still there. He is still alive. Plague take the idiot! Why doesn't he come down out of that?

“Yoffemoffemoffemoffemoff. Yoffemoff!”

But no! He will do it himself. The Chief rushes gallantly into the burning building and disappears up the dark stair.

Desperate measures are now to be resorted to. On the lawn a line of men forms. They bend their necks, cowering before the fierce glow, but daring it, and prepared to face it at even closer range. You are to witness now an exhibition of that heroism which is commoner with us than we think, that spirit of do and dare which mocks at danger and even welcomes pain. It is a far finer sentiment than the cold-hearted calculation which looks ahead, and figures out first whether it is worth while or not.

The men dash forward in the withering heat. With frantic haste they fix the hook into the lattice-work beneath the porch and scamper back.

“Yo hee! Yo hee!”

The thick rope tautens as the firemen lay their weight to it. You can almost see the bristling fibers stand up on it.

“Yo hee! Yo hee!”

With a splintering crash the timber parts, and a piece of lattice-work is dragged away.

Another sortie and another. Bit by bit the porch is ripped and torn to rubbish. You smile. It seems so futile. What are these kindlings saved when the whole house is burning? Is this what you call heroism? Yet the charge at Balaklava was not more futile. It had even less of commonsense, less of hope of benefit to mankind to back it and inspire it. Heroism is an instinct, not a thoughtout policy. Its quality is the same, in two-ounce samples or in car-load lots.

The weather-boarding slips down in a sparkling fall. The joists and stringers, all outlined and gemmed with coals, are, as it were, a golden grille, through which the world may look unhindered in upon the holy place of home, heretofore conventually private. There stands the family altar, pitifully grotesque amid the ruinous splendor of the destroying fire, the tea-kettle upon it proudly flaunting its steamy plume. What? Is a common cooking-stove an altar? Yes, verily, in lineal descent. Examine an ancient altar and you will see its sacrificial stone scored and guttered to catch the dripping from the roasting meat. Who is the priestess, after an order older than Melchisedec's, but she that ministers to us that most comfortable sacrament, wherein we are made partakers not alone of the outward and visible food which we do carnally press with our teeth, but also of that inward and spiritual sustenance, the patient and enduring love of wife and mother, without which there can be no such thing as home? All other sacraments wherein men break the bread of amity together are but copies of this pattern, the Blessed Sacrament of the Household Altar, the first and primal one of all, the one that shall perdure, please God! throughout all ages of ages.

The flames die down. The timbers sink together with a softer fall. The air grows chill. We fetch a sigh. We cannot bear to look at that mute figure of the priestess seated on the sordid heap of broken furniture, her sleeping baby pressed against her breast, her gaze fixed—but seeing naught—upon her ruined temple. We do not like to think upon such things. We do not like to think at all. Is there nothing more to laugh at?

The firemen, having all borrowed the makings of a cigarette from each other, put on their hats and coats, left on the hook-and-ladder truck in the custody of a trusted member. The apparatus trundles off, the bells dolorously tolling as the striking gear on the rear axle engages the cam.

Who is this weeping man approaches, supported by two friends, that comfort him with: “All right, Tom. You done noble,” uttered in pacifying if not convincing tones? Heart-brokenly he cries: “I dull le ver' bes' I knowed, now di' n't I? Charley? Billy, I dub bes' I knowed how. An' nen he says to me—Oo-hoo-hoo-oooo-oo! He says to me: 'Come ou' that, ye cussed fool!' Oo-oooo-hoo-hoo-oo-oo! Smf! Lemme gi' amma ham hankshiff. Leg go my arm. Waw gi' amma hankshifp. Oo-oo-oo-hoo-hoo-oo-oo! Fmf! I ash you as may wurl—I ash you as may—man of world, is that—is that proper way address me? Me! Know who I am? I'm Tom Ball. 'S who I am. I kill lick em man ill Logan Coun'y. Ai' thasso? Hay? 'S aw ri. Mfi choose stay up there, aw thas sec—aw thas second floor and rescue fel-cizzen's propprop'ty from devouring em—from devouring emlement, thas my bizless. Ai' tham my bizless, Charley? Ai' tham my bizless, Billy? W'y, sure. Charley, you're goof feller. You too, Billy. You're goof feller, too. Say. Wur-wur if Miller's is open yet? 'Spose it is? Charley; I dub bes' I knowed how, di'n't I, now? Affor that Chief come up thas stairway and say me: 'Come ou' that, ye cussed fool!' Aw say! 'Come ou' that—'Called me fool, too! Oo-hoo-hoo-oo-oo-oo!”

“Hello, Dan! Hurt yourself any? (That's Dan O'Brien. Fell off the roof.) Well, sir, I thought sure you'd broken your neck. You don't know your luck. And let me tell you one thing, my bold bucko: You'll do that just once too often. Now you mark.”

The day before the Weekly Examiner goes to press, Mr. Swope hands the editor a composition entitled: “A Card of Thanks,” signed by John K. and Amelia M. Swope, and addressed to the firemen and all who showed by their many acts of kindness, and so forth and so on.

“Kind of help to fill up the paper,” says Mr. Swope, covering his retreat.

“Sure,” replies the editor. When Mr. Swope is good and gone, he says: “Dog my riggin's if I didn't forget all about writing up that fire. Been so busy here lately. Good thing he come in. Hay, Andy!”

“Watch want?” from the composing-room.

“Got room for about two sticks more?”

“Yes, guess so. If it don't run over that.”

A brief silence. Then:

“Hay, Andy?”

“What?”

“Is it 'had have,' or 'had of?”

“What's the connection?”

“Why-ah. 'If the gallant fire-laddies, under the able direction of Chief Charley Lomax, had of had a sufficiency of water with which to cope with the devouring element—'etc.”

“'Had have,' I guess. I don't know.”

“Guess you're right. Run it that way anyhow.”