Play Away!
Author: Allen, Willis Boyd
Date: 2015-11-10T06:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Action & Adventure
Description: Ebook prepared by crutledge@knology.net
Rights: Public Domain

TABLE of CONTENTS

CHAPTER I—LEAVING HOME.

CHAPTER II—THE ENGINE-HOUSE.

CHAPTER III—CIVIL SERVICE.

CHAPTER IV—FORTY - SIX.

CHAPTER V—A DOWN-TOWN FIRE.

CHAPTER VI—CHRISTMAS EVE.

CHAPTER VII—THROUGH THE FLAMES.

LIST of ILLUSTRATIONS

- “Look out! He’s coming!”

- Tom seized the tureen and dashed its contents upon the blaze.

- “It’s a puff-out in the upper story,” said Burns, hoarsely.

- “Hush!” said Perkins, sharply,-looking toward the door.

- “Play away! Play away! Water!” screamed Tom.

CHAPTER I.
LEAVING HOME.

“PLAY away, Sixteen!”

On a certain evening, early in December, a few years ago, a conflagration, starting from spontaneous combustion in a staircase closet, threatened to consume one of the largest Boston warehouses on Lincoln Street. It was a lofty granite building, and when the department arrived smoke was pouring from the front windows, and flames were bursting through the skylight over the elevator well.

The captain of the first engine on the scene at once took charge of the fire, pending the arrival of the district chief, and coolly stationed the forces under his command, so as to attack the enemy at every assailable point. Firemen swarmed into the lower stories, but could not pass the third landing, the fire being hottest on that floor.

“Play away, Sixteen!” came the hoarse call from one of the windows, as a helmeted fireman thrust his head out through the smoke.

The “booming” of the beautiful “Amos-keag” machine stationed at the street corner responded to the cry, and the hissing and bubbling at the couplings of the line of hose that stretched from the nearest hydrant to the burning building told that water was being driven through it at’ tremendous pressure.

All this had occurred within three minutes of the arrival of the first piece of apparatus. Meanwhile a crowd had gathered as if by magic, and every available sidewalk, lamppost, and comer was occupied by an eager, jostling mass of spectators, with upturned faces.

In the very front rank of the throng, which the police were already beginning to press back, was Tom Sherwin, a young fellow whose subsequent fortunes were largely influenced by this fire and its results.

To understand who Tom was, and how he came to be present on this particular night, it is necessary to go back six months or so, to a farm in central Vermont, where, on a hot July afternoon, two brothers were at work side by side in the haying-field.

“I’ll be awfully lonesome without you, Tom, here on the farm!” Willard Sherwin inverted his pitchfork as he spoke, and leaned on it while he pushed back his straw hat and wiped his forehead.

His brother glanced at him kindly, but kept on turning the long windrow of hay.

“I suppose you will miss me, Will,” said he, when the younger lad, sixteen or seventeen years old, had resumed his task. “But I sha’n’t go to the city till the heavy fall work is all done, and you can have a chance at your books. If you keep right at it, you can fit for- college within two years, and by that time I shall be earning enough to take care of mother and Sis, with a little to spare for you, perhaps.”

Willard plunged his fork into a huge drift of hay, and tried to lift it, but it was too heavy. His brother happened to be looking, and jumping to his side with a laugh, he tossed the hay in the air like geese-feathers.

“It’s no use, Will,” said he, returning to his own station, and wielding his fork vigorously, “you’re meant for books, just as surely as I am for hard work with my muscles. Look here, I can handle the rest of this piece without you. There’s an hour before supper yet. Just drop it, and take a lick at your algebra or Latin, if you want to.”

Tom Sherwin was a head taller and some three years older than the delicate-looking lad at his side. The muscles stood out on his lean brown arms, bared to the elbow, and his healthful, good-natured laugh was a pleasant thing to hear.

People said the younger brother had inherited his mother’s brains, as well as her frail constitution and gentle ways. His heart was set on going to college and fitting himself for a literary career. Already, his verses and descriptive essays, of course furnished gratuitously, were prominent in the county paper. The people of East Brook-ville were proud of their talented young townsman, and among his admirers none were morle sincere than his brother and sister, neither of whom could have written four lines of poetry, or two “stickfuls” of good English prose to save their lives.

Their father had died two years before this story opens, leaving the place, like most of its neighbors, mortgaged to pretty nearly its full value. Tom, on becoming suddenly the head of the family, exerted himself to the utmost to run the farm profitably and keep the interest down. In this he succeeded, but could make no impression on the principal, even with the help of fourteen-year-old Bessie and Will, who did their best to economize and to earn a little by outside work. Food could be, and was, for the most part, raised and grown on the farm but clothes had to be bought, and there were little luxuries (such as the weekly paper) which they could not bear to see their mother do without.

When Tom announced his resolution to seek his fortune, or rather theirs, in the city, ninety miles away, the tired little mother turned pale, and Bessie’s brown eyes filled. It was plain, however, that something must be done, or Will would have to give up his ambitions and hopes, and the whole family must spend their lives fighting off the wolf from the door. Mrs. Sherwin and her children talked the matter over calmly that evening, and it was decided that Tom should seek employment in Boston, as soon as the indispensable farm work of the year had been cleared up.

“I can help Will milk and feed the cattle,” said Bessie, cheerily, “and take care of the hens better than Tom himself.”

“And I’ll do the rest of the work about the place, mother,” added Will, holding her hand as he had a way of doing when she was worried. “When it comes spring again, perhaps we can afford to hire a man for a day or two each week, or we can let the west lot go without planting one year and lie fallow. The books say that’s a good thing.” Then Tom broke in with his great jolly laugh, and clapped his brother on the shoulder.

“You’re a great farmer, Will,” said he.

“And you and Sis will take just as good care of mother for a little while as if I was here. By spring I expect to be earning enough to send home a part of my wages to hire a man to do the ploughing, west lot an’ all. And within a year or so I hope I can afford to pay off the mortgage, or, at any rate, to sell the place and take you up to Boston, where Will and Bess can have all the schoolin’ they want, and we can all live together.”

The matter thus hopefully settled, Tom worked harder than ever through the hot weather of June and July to get the place into good shape, and make it produce a record crop before he should leave it.- The grass was now down, and in two days more it would be safely housed.

“Thank you, Tom,” said Will, when his brother good-naturedly suggested his retiring from the sunny field where the two had been pitching hay since noon. “I guess I’ll finish out one more row, and then I’ll knock off.

There’ll be time for a little Caesar before supper.”

That evening the family all sat in the big, old-fashioned kitchen, talking over the prospects of the coming winter.

“I think Mr. Barstow will give me a letter to somebody in Boston,” said Tom, at the open window. “He has friends there. I’ll speak to him about it after meetin’ next Sunday.”

Mr. Barstow was the Methodist minister at Brookville Corner where the family had “attended” for three generations.

“Better go to him some week-day,” suggested Mrs. Sherwin. “Maybe he won’t like to talk of business matters on the Sabbath.”

“For my part, I like the idea of our giving up the farm and all going to the city,” put in Will, who had been looking dreamily out at the sunset light in the sky over the western hills. “If I ever should go to Harvard I could board at home and save a good deal.”

Mrs. Sherwin sighed, and was silent. The prospect of leaving the home of her young married life bore heavily upon her.

Opportunely enough, the conversation was interrupted by the arrival of the minister, stopping for a friendly call on his way home from a sick parishioner in the outskirts of the village. Mr. Barstow promised heartily to give Tom a letter to a brother clergyman in Boston, who might be able to put the lad in the way of securing employment, and at any rate could help him select a cheap but respectable boarding-place.

Summer and autumn passed slowly away, though all too quickly for the mother who was so soon to lose one of her boys. The corn-field, with its flashing blades of green, grew golden, and among the stalks lay great, plump squashes and pumpkins, like huge oranges dropped from a giant’s basket.

Then came the first frosts of October, and the maples blazed out, along the edge of the swamp and here and there on the hill-slopes.

The farm-work was thoroughly done by Tom, who already felt the growing sadness of “last times.” His disposition was too hopeful, however, to allow him to become gloomy over the prospect of leaving home, and he went about his tasks whistling cheerily and keeping up the courage of the whole family. He had more than one quiet talk, too, with good Mr. Barstow, at the little parsonage near the meeting-house and he resolved that, come what might, he would live a clean, honorable life among the city temptations he would be a man, ready always to look his mother in the face.

At length the crops were gathered and stored, the barn and out-houses put in order, arrangements made for extra help when needed, and there was no longer any reason for delay. Tom spent Thanksgiving Day at home, in the old-fashioned way, and on the following Monday morning said good-bye to his mother and sister. Willard drove him to the railroad station, two miles away.

Tom felt a lump in his throat as the wagon rattled down the frozen road, and looking back, he saw Bessie still waving her handkerchief from the front door. He could guess what his mother was doing in her own chamber.

“Goin’ up t’ the city? Wall, good luck to ye, Tom,” said the old station-master, with a grip of his knotty hand. “Hope ye’ll come back a rich man an’ spend your money on the taown. Needs it bad’nough!”

“Good-bye, Will!”

“Good-bye, Tom. Don’t forget —” Willard could say no more, but swallowed hard. The train thundered up to the platform, and a minute later was on its way southward, faster than ever, with the elder brother on board.

Tom was glad of his letter, when he reached the great, hurrying, noisy station in Boston. Bag in hand he made his way along the crowded streets, up to the quieter sections, where, by much inquiring, he found the home of his minister’s friend. There he met a cordial welcome, for Doctor Wetherall was one of those bluff, hearty men who never do anything by halves. He interested himself at once in the country lad’s welfare, and accompanied him to the boarding-house, in a small but respectable South End street, which was kept by people who had been members of his own church years before. The next day, he gave Tom half a dozen letters to business friends, and within three days the young fellow was installed as man-of-all-work in a wholesale boot and shoe establishment on Congress Street, to “take hold wherever he was wanted,” at six dollars a week wages, with promise of better things if at the end of six months he had proved himself capable. The principal part of his work was in handling and shipping heavy boxes of shoes. Here his long limbs and powerful muscle came in play, and he soon won the commendation of his superiors, as well as, in some small degree, the envy of the other lads in the same employ.

One of his fellow employees boarded at the same house with Tom. He was a city-bred young man of perhaps two and twenty, named Rawson Black. Corresponding with his name were his hair and his tired-looking eyes, which were wont to wear heavy circles around them, especially on Monday mornings. He seemed disposed to be friendly with the newcomer, but after a short conversation as they walked home from work one night, Tom blushed and thought of his mother and sister and presently he made an excuse to turn off at the next corner, from which he took a circuitous route, alone, to the boarding-house. Black was not long in discovering that the country boy was really shocked and repelled by his stories, and first scorned, then respected and hated, the clean-minded lad with all his mean little soul.

A table-companion whom Tom liked from the outset was a jolly young fellow named Fred Larkin. Larkin was a reporter on the staff of one of the large Boston dailies, and was brimming over with energy, fun, and such anecdotes as Tom was not ashamed to listen to.

One evening early in December Rawson Black made a final attempt to gain over the new boarder.

“You haven’t anything to do to-night, Sherwin,” said he. “Come down-town with me, and I’ll show you something new. We can drop in at the ‘Columbia’ on the way down. There’s a big piece running there now, and I know some of the —”

“Thanks,” interrupted Tom shortly, rising from his chair at the supper-table. “I can’t go with you, Black. I’ve—I’ve got another engagement.”

“Prayer-meeting, or ‘Daughters of Vermont’ tea?” sneered the other. “If you’re afraid to take in the sights, baby, you’d better have stayed at home, milking the cows!”

Tom’s eyes flashed, and his fists doubled up, but he only turned his back on the other and marched off to join Larkin, who was playing a rollicking song on the tinkly piano in the first-floor parlor. Joining in the chorus, he soon forgot his encounter with his low-minded fellow lodger, and when Larkin turned from the instrument after a final slam-bang flourish, in which nearly every key on the board had to take part, his face had cleared and wore its ordinary frank, good-humored expression.

“Look here, Thomas,” said the reporter, spinning round on the piano-stool, “it’s a glorious evening. I’ve an assignment at eight, to attend a Tremont Temple meeting. Come along down with me. The fresh air will do you good, my son!”

“All right,” says Tom heartily, “I’ll go.”

“How about that engagement, sissy? D. of V., eh?”

Tom sees Black at his shoulder and again resists a violent desire to say or do something decidedly pugnacious. But he masters himself.

“I have an engagement with one ‘Daughter of Vermont,’” he says, coldly. “It is to go nowhere in the city where I couldn’t take her with me. That doesn’t cover your route, I reckon.”

Black had no more to say and flung himself out of the house, Tom setting off with Larkin a few minutes later.

Snow had fallen lightly during the day, and the evening air was crisp and cojd. As it was Saturday, the stores that lined the principal streets were open and brilliantly lighted. The sidewalks were thronged with people, most of them pleasure-seekers, on their way to down-town theatres and concert-halls, the doors of which were ablaze with electric light. There were many saloons, too, doing a thriving business, and in one of the largest of them, not far from the corner of Boylston Street, Tom, glancing through the plate-glass windows, saw Black standing at the bar. There was a sound of gay voices in the air, and now and then a tinkling of bells, where somebody was taking advantage of the first sleighing of the season.

Below Boylston Street, on Washington, the crowd, both of carriages and pedestrians, became more dense. Here and there a burly, dignified policeman sauntered along the sidewalk, his buttons and shield flashing in the electric light. It was a fascinating scene to the country-bred lad, who was not yet too much accustomed to city sights to weary of their novelty.

“Tom, why don’t you go in for the Police Department?” said Fred, with a laugh, as he noticed his chum’s gaze following the broad-shouldered guardian of the peace. “You’re big and strong enough.”

“I’ve thought of it,” replied Tom, soberly. “But of the two I’d rather be a fireman. I never saw a big fire, but I’ve read about them, times enough. I belonged to the company in Bast Brookville and we had some lively work once or twice.”

“Yes, but it’s a hard job, and dangerous,” said Fred. “And the pay’s nothing bewildering.”

“I don’t mind the danger. It’s a fine thing to be always on the lookout to save life as well as property. If I could only —” “Hark!” interrupted the reporter, checking the other by a grasp on the arm. “You may see your first big fire this very night!

. Don’t you hear the apparatus coming?”

People began to dodge out of the pavements toward the sidewalks. A jangling of gongs was heard in the distance, and far up the street they could see red sparks rising.

“It’s an engine—probably Sixteen—” said Larkin, who knew the location, and most of the members, of every piece of fire apparatus in the city. “Stand here by the lamp-post and see’em go past!”

“They can’t get by here!” gasped Tom, looking at the throng of teams and trolley-cars that seemed to wedge the street full from curb to curb.

“They will, though! Just watch’em! Yes, it’s Sixteen! I know those two white horses and one black!” cried the reporter, catching the other’s excitement, and at the same time instinctively feeling for his notebook.

“Stand back! Stand back!” shouted the policeman, in whom no one would have recognized the phlegmatic individual of a few moments before. He seized foot-passengers by the arms and horses by the bridles, and had hardly cleared a space in the centre of the street when the engine was upon them, its gong clanging furiously, a volume of black smoke, dotted with fiery sparks, pouring from, its funnel, and the manes of the three powerful horses rising and falling as the noble animals hurled themselves onward at full gallop. The driver’s face was set rigidly as he leaned forward on his seat, holding the tight reins and peering ahead down the street. It seemed a miracle that no collision occurred, that no careless spectator was run over or injured. The mass of vehicles melted away to both sides like snow before a red-hot iron, and the polished machine thundered on its way, followed by a hose-wagon drawn by a single horse, galloping like the others. The wagon seemed filled with firemen, one of whom was pulling on his coat.

“What number, captain?” called out Larkin, to a uniformed fireman clinging somehow to the rear of the engine as it passed.

“Fifty-two!”

The two young men barely caught the words, for the officer had not turned his head toward them in replying.

“Fifty-two!” repeated Fred. “That’s an ugly locality. It’s the place where the big fire started. See! It’s lighting up already!”

As the reporter spoke he pointed to the sky where, in the southeast, a faint red glow showed above the house-tops.

“Come on, Tom! I’ve a half-hour to spare yet!”

Tom needed no urging, but kept close at his friend’s side, in the middle of the street, as he dodged cars and hacks, and once jumped hastily on the sidewalk to get out of the way of a ladder-team that passed them with a clatter and roar, on the way to the fire.

A good many people were now running and walking in the same direction. They turned down Summer Street toward Kingston.

“There’s where’tis!” cried Fred, as they passed around the next corner.

Tom looked where the crowd was the thickest. Smoke was rolling out of the third story of a lofty granite building, and every few seconds a great ball of flame burst up from the roof. Two engines were already at work, and the ladder-men were pulling a heavy extension ladder from their truck with feverish haste. A loud cry arose from the crowd.

“What is it?” demanded Larkin of his nearest neighbor, a burly fellow who had pushed his way in close to the burning building.

“They say there’s somebody alive up there! Look! Look!” and another cry arose from the street as the figure of a man in his shirtsleeves appeared at one of the fifth-story windows, brandishing his arms. If he was shouting, his words could not be heard, for the din of engines and voices below.

At almost the same instant a burst of smoke came from the next window, and then it rolled out past the frenzied man.

“Don’t jump!” screamed a hundred voices from the street. “Wait for the ladder!”

But the captain of the engine near which they were standing—- the same that had passed them on Washington Street—saw that the ladder would be too late. From its case on the top of the hose-carriage close by he pulled out a heavy roll, about a yard long, like a small bale of carpeting.

“Grab hold here some of you men, quick!” he shouted, springing to the base of the building, followed by three or four firemen who were within call.

Tom was the first to respond, from the crowd, and in less time than it takes to tell it the life-net was spread beneath the imperilled man. It was held breast high by a dozen men, the volunteers following such hasty directions as the firemen could give their unskilled assistants.

Tom, grasping the net and leaning backward with all his might, looked up, but the volumes of smoke from the lower windows completely hid the fifth story, from which the man might come plunging down at any moment.

CHAPTER II.
THE ENGINE-HOUSE.

THE deep booming of the engines, theshouts of the firemen and spectators, and the roar of the flames within the building might well have confused an older and steadier volunteer than Tom. His slight experience in the East Brookville “Fire Department” (consisting of one hand-engine, a hose reel, and half a dozen call members) now stood him in good stead, and he nerved himself, with every muscle well controlled, for the shock of the falling man.

All those who held the net were gazing upward, trying in vain to pierce the heavy masses of smoke that rolled from the third story windows, when the black folds were parted an instant and Tom caught sight of his man, far above on the sill of that window in the fifth story. He was in the very act of jumping, and as Tom perceived with a thrill of horror, he would inevitably fall outside the net by several feet. With a shrill cry, “Look out! He’s coming!” the country lad instinctively gave a pull at the net with all his strength, actually dragging the other volunteers in the right direction.

The next moment the falling man struck the net like a cannon ball, barely missing Tom’s head and throwing the whole crowd nearly off their feet by the shock. In another moment he was caught up and borne out of danger by two of the firemen, and was discovered to be unhurt beyond a bruise or two and a general shaking up.

The whole affair had been so sudden that Tom could hardly realize that he had been instrumental in saving a life. Half a dozen falling slates, splintering on the pavement beside him, reminded him of his own danger, and he sprang back to rejoin the young reporter, from whose side he had not been absent three minutes.

“Good for you, old boy!” exclaimed Larkin, grasping him by the hand. “I saw the whole thing. If it hadn’t been for you that man would have fallen outside the net, and would never have known what hurt him!”

“I guess that’s so,” said Tom, still panting from his exertions, and turning to watch the progress of the fire.

“It’ll make a tip-top paragraph for the Bulletin,” continued the other, writing away vigorously, “Hair-breadth escape—thrilling scene—young hero from the country —”

“Look here,” interrupted Tom, flushing to the roots of his hair, “don’t put that in, Larkin!”

“Why not?” demanded Fred. “It’s all true, and will read first-rate. You can send a marked copy to your mother.”

“Oh, leave out the hero business,” laughed Tom, putting his hand over the reporter’s page “you can make a good story of it without me. Come, I mean it! Anybody would dodge a man dropping on him out of the fifth story, and I didn’t think when I did it, anyway.”

“Well,” said Fred, reluctantly, “I won’t put in your name, if you really don’t want me to. But you’re losing a great chance, my son!”

“I can stand it. Look at those ladders go up!”

The firemen were now swarming into the building and attacking the enemy, front and rear. Ladders were planted against the front wall and lines of hose were carried in at the windows, streams were poured on the flames from adjoining roofs, and huge clouds of steam mingled with the smoke that rolled up from the burning building.

“Come along,” said Fred, pocketing his note-book. “They’ve got it under control, and I mustn’t miss my assignment. There’s just time to get to the Temple.”

Tom felt the reaction from the great strain of the life-saving incident, as soon as he had turned his back on the fire and the crowd. His hands trembled and his breath came in short gasps. He wondered how he could have stood there, among the falling slates, and waited for the man to jump.

“I—I guess I’ll go home,” he said, faintly.

“Used up? Well, no wonder! You’ll be all right in the morning. And—say, Sher-win, keep an eye on that Black. I saw him in the crowd back there, and he’ll do you some mischief if he can. Good-night, old fellow!”

“Good-night, Larkin. I’m not afraid,” said Tom, with a faint smile.

His sleep that night was broken by wild dreams of blazing buildings. His mother, with a fireman’s hat on, bade him jump from the roof, while Rawson Black played the hose on him. Toward morning, however, youth and health prevailed over nerves, and he fell into a heavy sleep, from which he did not awake until after the usual breakfast hour. He was late at the warehouse, and, disdaining to refer to the incident of the preceding evening, was rather sharply rebuked by the junior partner of the firm. Black, who heard the colloquy, grinned maliciously, and said nothing.

A few days after the fire Fred Larkin told Tom that he had an invitation for him to visit the headquarters of an engine company not far from the boarding-house. Tom’s evenings were free, and as he was eager to learn more of the department, he gladly accompanied his friend.

They were admitted by a young man who, in dark blue uniform with silver buttons, presented a very different appearance from that of the helmeted, besmirched, rubber-coated workers at the fire.

“Come right in,” said the fireman, cordially. “Glad to see you, Larkin.”

Tom was duly presented, and a few minutes later met the captain, a tall, kindly-faced man, who welcomed him to headquarters and proceeded to show the country lad about the premises with as much courtesy as if he had been entertaining the mayor.

The lower floor of the house was taken up by the large room for the engine and hose-carriage and, in the rear, the stables. The beautiful machine itself, with its gleaming brass and steel work, was connected with a pipe which came up through the flooring and, the captain explained, kept a steady pressure of about twenty-five pounds of steam in the boiler day and night. In the box under the boiler were wood and coal heaped together so as to be lighted in a moment, when necessary, by the aid of a small oil “torch” which hung within easy reach.

“But when the engine starts for a fire,” said Tom, “I should think it would rip that pipe right up out of the floor.”

“See,” said the captain, “here is an automatic coupling which releases itself, shuts off the hot steam and so frees the engine the moment it is in motion.”

The captain then led the way to a comer of the room where a man was seated at a desk, with a number of gongs, clocks, and steel handle-bars above and beside him.

“There’s always one man on duty, to receive the alarm, record it, let out the horses and rouse the men up-stairs—although as a rule they don’t need much rousing when an alarm comes in. Men and horses soon learn to recognize the first sound of the tapper, and in less time than would have seemed possible a few years ago they are in their places and the apparatus ready to start.”

“I read once in a boys’ book,” said Tom, “that when that book was written—I guess it was about 1870—the London Fire Brigade was so splendidly trained, that in twenty-five minutes from the time of receiving the alarm, the horses were harnessed, the men in their places, and the engine ready to start.”

The captain laughed. “Make it seconds to-day,” said he, “and we shall have a comfortable leeway. Practically it takes us about half a minute to get off, but we’ve done it in practice in just nine seconds! Now let me tell you how the alarm comes in. This little bell, which is operated from the fire alarm headquarters in City Hall, we call the ‘joker.’ The moment it begins to strike off the number, it stops that small clock, so that we know exactly when the alarm was received. The joker gives the number of the box four times, or ‘rounds,’ and when it has finished the second round, that big fellow begins to strike the number also. But before this we are generally ready to start, or actually out of the house and on the way to the fire.”

“But who goes in and leads out the horses?”

“Some houses have an automatic arrangement by which the joker itself frees the horses—they don’t wait for ‘leading out!’—but here we throw over that lever, which releases every horse and opens their doors. They take their places under the harness, there the driver by that time is in his seat, and with one pull drops the harness on their backs. A couple of men snap their collars together, and there they are, crazy to start right through doors and all, while the rest of us jump on, and away we go—the engineer and his assistant, with myself, on that board or step, behind the engine, the rest on the hose wagon, putting on their helmets and coats (which you see hanging there on the wagon) as they go.”

Just then there was a loud bang from one of the stalls.

“What’s that?” exclaimed Tom, rather startled.

“Oh, that’s Old Billy. We must try to break him of that habit. He does it with his fore-foot, knocking at the door. Perhaps you’d like to see the horses?”

Here, at least, Tom was at home. He viewed the splendid creatures in their stalls delightedly, with a critic’s eye. “Billy” proved to be the white horse who occupied the central position in the trio that drew the engine. He was a huge fellow, weighing a trifle over thirteen hundred, the captain said, as he patted the broad expanse of snowy flank. The animal had backed out of his stall at the word, and was now nibbling over his master’s coat, and looking at Tom with great mild eyes.

“He’s had more than one close shave for his life,” said the captain. “Only a few weeks ago there was an unexpected blow-out from a lower story on Bromfield Street, and the way bricks and glass flew around Billy was a caution. See, there was a scratch, but it’s healed over nicely.”

Tom was listening eagerly to all his entertainer said, and Larkin was taking a few notes, as was his wont, for a short “story” in the Bulletin, when the captain suddenly headed Billy into his stall, giving him a resounding slap as he did so, to hurry the huge creature up.

But Billy needed no urging. Before his door flew open he had already given it a resounding blow with his iron hoof, and was quivering with eagerness to get out.

“What’s the —” began Tom, who had heard nothing. But the captain was already in the outer room, and as his visitors followed they heard the small gong quietly tapping off a number, above the desk. It was the premonitory “click” of the instrument that had caught the ear of both man and horse.

Down came one fireman after another on a shining brass pole that Tom had noticed projecting through an opening in the floor above. The men bounded from the elastic mat at the bottom of the pole, each one barely getting out of the way of the next succeeding him. At the same time, with a deafening thunder of hoofs over the floor, five great horses scrambled out of their stalls and took their places in front of the two pieces of apparatus, Billy going ahead and backing in deftly between his mates. Fred, knowing what was coming, had drawn his friend out of the way, or Tom might have been knocked head over heels in the onrush of nine pairs of feet and twenty iron-shod hoofs.

For a moment all seemed confusion. A big cat which had been lying asleep near the desk had sprung, at the first alarm, under the engine itself, as the only place of safety.

Before he could fairly realize what was taking place, Tom found himself standing beside Fred on the sidewalk as the ponderous machine rolled out of the engine-house, and, followed by the hose-wagon, rattled away, with a clatter of hoofs, and a burst of fiery smoke from its stack, down the street.

The country boy drew a long breath.

“Is it a regular fire?” he asked, looking amazedly after the engine.

“It’s a regular alarm, my son, and I may as well take it in,” said Fred. “Good-night! You can find your way home all right!” And he swung himself upon the rear platform of a trolley car which was speeding after the apparatus.

Ever since his experience at the down-town fire, Tom had been turning a project over and over in his mind. As he walked back slowly to his boarding-house, the plan took definite shape.

“I’ll join the Boston Fire Department,” he said to himself. “I’m built for just that kind of work, and I like it. The pay is good at the very start, and there’s plenty of chance for promotion. I’ll make my application to-morrow, see if I don’t!”

He wrote to his mother that very night, telling her all about his new resolve, and drawing a — literally—glowing picture of the life of a fireman in a large city. Of course Mrs. Sherwin wrote at once, begging him not to enter such a dangerous calling. She was much relieved when he replied rather sheepishly, informing her that he would have to wait considerably over a year before his application would be considered the rules of the Civil Service being absolutely inexorable as to the age limit of candidates for service in the department. He therefore continued faithfully in his duties at the warehouse determined, however, to let pass no opportunity of fitting himself for the career which he desired with all his heart. Of course he would not enter upon it without his mother’s consent, but he was hopeful of obtaining this before the intervening term of eighteen months, or thereabouts, had passed.

On the farm Will worked hard at his studies, attending an academy in a large town four miles away, and not neglecting his home duties. Rain, sunshine, or snow, he walked to and from Mechanicsville each day, unless, indeed, the drifts were so deep as to block the road completely. Then he took his shovel and made paths to barn and highway, and in the intervals of work pored over his algebra and ancient history. Bessie, too, did her part bravely, keeping up her mother’s courage and singing at her housework, even when at times her own heart was heavy. She herself had to walk nearly half a mile to school. Fortunately, the High Schoolhouse was on the road to Mechanicsville, so that brother and sister could bear each other company for at least ten minutes. As they started off merrily in the morning and waved good-bye from the turn of the road, Mrs. Sherwin would sigh wearily, and long, as only mothers can long, for her tall, broad-shouldered boy in the great city. When Tom wrote that he must await the pleasure of the Civil Service Commission, in applying for a position on the fire department, she put away that worry for awhile, but she knew the lad well enough to feel sure that, once resolved, he was not likely to change his mind.

Tom’s principal trouble, in the months that followed, arose from the continual and unreasoning hostility of Rawson Black, who let no occasion slip for annoying and badgering the newcomer. Black, having been in the warehouse employ for a year or two, was in advance of young Sherwin in the line of promotion, and before the winter was out he occupied a position which gave him some slight authority over the country boy. Tom would not cry baby, but when he found his work hindered and thwarted, his privileges abridged, and his steady and conscientious labors slighted, through the malice of his overseer, he made a confidant of Larkin, who promised to stand by him and see fair play, should the persecution so increase as to affect his standing in the business house.

Meanwhile Tom used every opportunity of making himself familiar with the detailed work of the firemen. He went to a fire whenever he had sufficient notice, which through the help of the young reporter was frequent. Of course, he was almost entirely limited to the night-time, in these pursuits, and he was careful not to allow them to interfere in the slightest degree with his regular work.

Through the kindness of the captain to whose assistance he had so promptly rushed on the occasion of his first large fire, he was enabled to visit most of the headquarters of the various pieces of apparatus in the city, until he was almost as well known and welcome in the engine-houses as Larkin himself. More than once he lent a hand, on an emergency, to the firemen who were handling a serious conflagration, or what threatened to be one. He talked with the drivers, caring for their horses at a distance from the fire, and made friends of several of the noble animals themselves, so that they whinnied at the sound of his voice, and stretched out their big, soft noses for the forthcoming lumps of sugar for Tom was a true lover of horses, and they soon found it out.

From time to time he was enabled, by strict economy, to send home small sums of money to be applied to the interest account on the mortgage, after payment of absolutely necessary family expenses. When he had a few days’ vacation in August, he allowed himself the extravagance of a visit to the farm.

He was welcomed with a gladness that was not far from tears, on his mother’s part, at least and he rejoiced in the sweet atmosphere of home. One look into his honest eyes, as he alighted on the green before the old house, told Mrs. Sherwin that he was mother’s boy still, and Bessie clung around his neck until he was fain to sit down on the door-stone, with his little sister on his knee, while he tried to answer a dozen questions at’ once, and edge in a few for himself.

The principal on the mortgage was still undiminished, although the interest had been kept down. It was evident that the Sher-wins must remain in the country another year, “or until I get my position in the department, with good pay,” said Tom, glancing at his mother out of the corner of his eye.

The happy seven days passed all too quickly, and Tom returned to the sweltering city. When he presented himself at the warehouse he was met by a request to go. to the office at once. His employer looked grave as the young man entered.

“Sit down, Sherwin,” said he, pointing to a chair. “A very serious thing has occurred since you went away on your vacation.” He paused, looking keenly at Tom, as if to observe any special effect of his words. Beside his desk stood Rawson Black, his eyes cast down meekly, but his cruel mouth wearing an expression which Tom felt boded him no good.

“A check has been drawn on our bank,” continued the manager more sternly, as Tom remained silent, “the firm name forged, and a large sum of money obtained on it. What can you tell me about it?”

CHAPTER III.
CIVIL SERVICE.

THE interview with Mr. Bronson, the junior partner of the firm, was a trying one. There was no direct evidence pointing to Tom’s complicity in the forgery, and he was dismissed to his work, but with a look that made him feel both uncomfortable and indignant. It said plainly enough, “We haven’t any proof, but we regard you as a suspicious character. We shall keep our eye on you!” For a week Tom felt greatly tempted to throw up his job, and was only restrained from doing it by his thought of his mother and sister, coupled with a strong remonstrance from Larkin, whose native common sense had been sharpened by city life. At the end of that time the real culprit was detected and arrested. It was a sallow-faced, simple-minded fellow, who had been largely under the influence of Black, in the warehouse. Raw-son had been shrewd enough to keep the smell of fire from his own garments, and poor Binkham, the tool, was convicted and sentenced to a term in the House of Correction. Tom felt that Black had been instrumental in arousing his employers’ suspicions against himself, and he more than ever longed to quit the establishment. Work, however, was scarce that spring, and there were many applicants for every situation offered. Tom wisely pocketed his affronts and kept doggedly at his tasks counting off the days and months, meanwhile, that lay between him and the department.

In this way more than a year passed. A long, hard year it was, with plenty of hard work, and seemingly little progress toward prosperity. The time had now come, however, for a great change in the home life of the Sherwin family. Will was ready to take the June examinations for entrance at Harvard Bessie, now a tall, pretty girl of fifteen, needed the advantages of better companionship than East Brookville could afford, and Tom had nearly reached the legal age for carrying out his long cherished plans. It was decided that the farm should be sold, under the mortgage, and that with whatever “equity,” or balance on the loan, remained in her hands, Mrs. Sherwin should remove to Boston with her two children. The family could then be together, and Will, who had high hopes of obtaining a scholarship, could at least enter college, trusting to hard work and a good record to remain in his class through the regular four years’ course.

One bright May morning, accordingly, saw our four friends seated at the breakfast-table in a small, cozy house not far from Tom’s original boarding-place. The spring sunshine streamed in at the window and rested on the snowy table-cloth, the plain but neat furnishings of the room, and the little group seated at the table, where Mrs. Sherwin was pouring out a cup of coffee for Tom, and Bessie chattered like an English sparrow, over her biscuit and milk.

“It’s just splendid!” she said, enthusiastically. “When we have our two boarders, we shall feel ready for anything. Will can go to college and perhaps I can study music”—which, be it said, was this young lady’s great ambition.

“I really think we can afford to live here without worrying,” said Tom, sipping his coffee with an air of great satisfaction. “I tell you, mother, this isn’t much like boarding-house coffee!”

Mrs. Sherwin, almost as light-hearted as her children, laughed.

“It is boarding-house coffee, or will be, as soon as our boarders come.”

“One of’em we’re sure of anyway, mother.

Fred Larkin says he’ll move right in, just as soon as we’re ready for him. And he thinks he can get a friend of his, another newspaper man, to occupy the other room.”

“I wish Mr. Larkin would take that front room,” said Mrs. Sherwin, regretfully. “The little hall bedroom is so small, and no fire in it!”

“He won’t. Just as soon as he heard that Bessie would have to go into the small one if he didn’t, he declared he’d been waiting all his life for a hall bedroom, and he wouldn’t be hired to take anything else.”

“He’s a dear!” exclaimed Bessie. “I’ll make him a pair of slippers for Christmas, see if I don’t!”

Just then Fred himself put in an appearance, and on being invited, joined his hosts at the table as easily as if he had been one of the family.

Conscious of her latest remark about slippers, Miss Bess was inclined to be bashful, at first but nobody could remain bashful with the merry, good-hearted young reporter. He came that very night, and within a week had kept his promise of bringing a companion from the Bulletin office, Morton Rowe by name.

The newcomer was as quiet as Fred was boisterous. He was older than any of the other young men, and won the liking of the family at once by his grave, kind face and manner.

In the latter part of August Tom filed his application for a position on the fire department at the office of the Civil Service Commission, in the State-house. There were usually, he was informed, two examinations each year, one in the spring and one in the fall. He would be notified six weeks in advance of the date of the next examination. In addition to the test of his knowledge of the elementary branches as taught in the common schools, and of his physical fitness for the position, he would be examined (he was told) on such laws and regulations governing the fire department as were contained in a small, red-covered pamphlet, which was thereupon placed in his hands.

In the evenings which followed, all the young people—including the two newspaper men whenever they could get away from the office—were busily engaged in teaching Tom these regulations, until he declared he could repeat them from end to end, backward or .forward. Fred added that Bessie was fully equipped for the department, and might take the examination at the same time.

Early in September the dreaded but longed-for day arrived. In accordance with the directions, he presented himself promptly at the State-house, where, in the course of half an hour, about twenty young men gathered, to take the examination. There were three commissioners present, and Tom’s heart was in his mouth when he saw their grave looks as they handed the papers to the applicants. The questions, however, proved easier than he had feared, and he answered them without much trouble. By two o’clock the examination was over. Tom handed in his papers and, drawing a long breath of relief, took his hat and went home.

The physical examination, which was to take place under the direction of a prominent Boston physician, in one of the Back Bay engine-houses, alone remained. This proved an easy affair for the applicant whose tall, well-knit frame met with instant approval. A few weeks of suspense intervened, and at length a portentous-looking envelope arrived at the Sherwin house. Tom tore it open eagerly and, with Bessie clinging to him and looking over his shoulder, read :

“COMMONWEALTH OF MASSACHUSETTS.

“CIVIL service certificate.

“This is to certify that Thomas L. Sherwin, of Boston, Massachusetts, has passed the examination required of applicants for appointment in the Fire Department service of Boston, schedule B, Class 2, with a marking of 92 per cent., and that his name has been placed on the eligible list for that service.

“Issued this-day of October, 19—, by order of the Civil Service Commissioners.

“Warren P. Dudley, Secretary.”

“Oh, Tom, Tom dear, you’re appointed!” cried Bessie, gleefully, giving her brother an ecstatic hug and waltzing him about the room.

“Not quite appointed, Bess, but ‘eligible,’” laughed Tom, trying to preserve his dignity. “I didn’t expect to get such a high mark. The appointments are given pretty much by the scale of percentage, they said so I ought to be actually at work before long. It depends on how soon a vacancy occurs, I suppose.”

“I don’t want any poor fireman to be hurt, but I do hope there’ll be a vacancy soon,” sang the girl, still pirouetting, when her tall brother refused to budge. “Mother, see,

Tom’s passed’ his exam., and got ninety-two!”

Fred and Morton joined heartily in the congratulations to the embryo fireman that evening, and the family celebrated by having strawberry ice-cream for supper.

Tom had not yet mentioned his plans to his employers. He now felt that it would be only fair to acquaint them with the facts, so that they might be prepared for his appointment to service in the department at any time. The junior partner, who had never been too friendly to the lad, happened to be in that morning, and Tom was half inclined to put off his announcement. He determined, however, to face the music, and having waited a few minutes for the busy man’s attention, respectfully and briefly told him of the step he had taken.

Mr. Bronson’s florid face took on a deeper hue of red, as he listened.

“So you want us to be prepared to lose your valuable services?” he demanded, sarcastically, when Tom had concluded. “Well, the firm will try to stagger on without you, from this very day.”

Tom was bewildered at his tone and manner.

“I—I don’t understand, sir —” he began, flushing in his turn.

“Gridley, hand me six dollars,” said the merchant, sharply, to the book-keeper. “Here, young man, take your wages to the end of the week, and don’t let me see you about the place again. Now do you understand?”

Tom took the bills mechanically, bowed, and turned to the door. As he went downstairs toward the street he realized the full extent of the blow, and his heart sank. The family had been almost wholly dependent upon him for support, the equity in the old place having barely sufficed for the first year’s rent of the new house. With this source of revenue, slight as it was, suddenly cut off, what should they do? Will had already begun his freshman year at Harvard, aided by a small scholarship which he had won Bessie was at school, hoping soon to be able to take music lessons. Boor Tom’s head drooped as he entered his home in the forenoon. His appointment as a probationary fireman might not come for months. How could they all live meanwhile?

With tears in his eyes, in spite of his efforts to control himself, he told his mother what had happened.

“I might have kept still and said nothing about it till the appointment came,” he said, wretchedly.

“That wouldn’t have been honorable,” replied Mrs. Sherwin, stroking the brown head which had been laid in that everlasting place of refuge, the mother’s lap. “Don’t worry, Tom, dear. We’ll make out somehow.”

A quiet talk followed, and Tom took courage to go out and hunt for work. He called on his friend, Doctor Wetherall, and told him the whole story, thus enlisting his aid in procuring a new situation. All the rest of the day, and all the days for a week or more, Tom tramped the streets, seeking in vain for employment. The city was flooded with men, it seemed, hunting for work at any price. Whenever he presented himself at a store or office, in answer to an advertisement, he found himself one of a large company, and he was never the fortunate man to be chosen. He had no special trade or business education, and he knew it would be useless to refer to his former employers for a recommendation. “Why did you leave your last place?” was almost invariably the first question, and Tom’s honest answer generally settled his fate then and there. Every night he came home crestfallen, and his face grew haggard with disappointment. In vain did Larkin crack his liveliest jokes and try to cheer him up. Morton Rowe succeeded a little better, with his warm grasp of the hand and quiet words of encouragement. “Remember, Sherwin,” he would say, “that the man who never knows when he is beaten is the one who succeeds. Don’t give up. You may strike just the right place tomorrow, and your appointment is sure to come, sooner or later, anyway.”

One afternoon Tom found himself near the headquarters of the engine company with whose captain he made acquaintance at the fire, more than a year before.

“Good evening, Sherwin,” said the broad-shouldered fireman, cordially. “Not one of us yet, I suppose? Well, you soon will be. That percentage will have put you pretty near the top of the list. I only wish the commissioner would apply to me for a suggestion, when a vacancy occurs! ”

Tom smiled, but his worried expression caught the other’s eye.

“What’s the matter with you, my lad?” inquired the captain, more gravely. “All well at home, I hope?”

“Yes, but I’m out of a job, and—and—well, to tell the truth, I can’t afford to be a gentleman of leisure just now,” replied Tom, trying to speak lightly.

“H’m, too bad, too bad,” said his friend, knitting his brows. “Look here,” he exclaimed, after a moment’s pause, “there’s just a bare chance of your slipping into a temporary place for a week or two. Our chief’s driver sprained his arm yesterday, running into a big brewery wagon on his way to a fire. The teams weren’t hurt, but he was jammed against a cask that stuck out over the wheels, and he won’t be fit to drive for a week or two at the best. The chief was looking for a man to take his place temporarily, and he may not have found the right one yet. Hold on, I’ll telephone and find out.”

In three minutes the kind-hearted fireman returned, his face shining.

“It’s all right, Sherwin,” he said, with a hearty clap on the young man’s shoulder. “I gave you the biggest kind of a recommend, for I know you’re at home with horses, and you’ve been studying the geography of this old town till you could find every back alley from North End to Walnut Hill. The pay isn’t much, but it will tide you over a part of your waiting time, anyway. Now jump for the chief’s headquarters before another man can drive him to the next fire!”

He gave the address, and Tom, overjoyed at this very large rift in the cloud, hurried away and presented himself before the district chief. The officer glanced him over, and with a nod of satisfaction, briefly described his duties. With a glad heart Tom went down to the stalls to scrape acquaintance with his horse. He found her to be a fine, intelligent animal, like most of the fire horses, of a light bay color with a white star on her forehead. Tom made friends with “ Kittie” at once, and promised her a lump of sugar in the near future. He next inspected the light, four-wheeled open wagon he was to drive, and made himself familiar with the harness and its appliances for quick work, which in the main resembled those of the larger pieces of apparatus.

As soon as he could get half an hour to himself, Tom ran all the way home with his good news. He was not only rejoiced to take his place again in the ranks of the wage-earners of the great city, but he felt that he had taken a positive step toward his permanent position in the department.

Twice within the next three days the chief was called out by an alarm in his district, but one of the two calls proved false, and the other merely a “chimney fire.” It was on the fourth day of his new duties that Tom was initiated into the real responsibilities and excitement of the position of driver for a district chief.

“Go right along!” said the chief, as they swung out of the house and took the streetcar tracks. “That’s a bad number. Every second may count now.”

There was no need of urging either Kittie or her driver. The noble bay went ahead at a clean gallop, striking sparks from the pavement with her iron-shod hoofs, and Tom, every nerve tense as he worked the gong-pin without ceasing, guided her fearlessly and intelligently through the business part of the city where the alarm had located the fire.

It was at an early hour of the morning when few pedestrians or teamsters were abroad, so that he had a nearly clear course.

Clatter—clatter, went Kittie’s hoofs, and the noise was echoed by the footfalls of other galloping horses, rattling wheels, and jangling gongs as the fire fighters gathered to their work.

“There it is!” said the chief, quietly. “Right across the square. Drive up and then take your horse out of the way.”

Tom guided Kittie to the very foot of the high brick building from which smoke was pouring in black and increasing volumes. Then, the chief having dismounted, he trotted the mare to a place of safety, and, throwing a light cloth over her, watched the progress of the fire.

One engine was already connecting, and another dashing up to the nearest hydrant.

“Thirteen in front!” called out the chief. “Captain, take a line in that front door. Axes here! Twenty-one, round to the rear!”

The door splintered, and in sprang the chief, followed by Thirteen’s captain and two men dragging a line of hose. The entry was filled with smoke, but the men ran up-stairs two steps at a time.

Presently the chief emerged, coughing. He had located the fire, and by his quick directions ladders were now raised against the front of that building, as well as the one adjoining. Almost before the tops of the ladders settled against the walls, firemen were clambering up with their lines of hose. Others were sent to the roof of the opposite building, and at the same time an attacking party was thrown upon the enemy’s rear.

Now the chief, and probably the captains of the companies at work, knew perfectly well that the lower stories of the building were occupied by a wholesale drug firm, and that explosive materials, as well as combustibles, were undoubtedly stored somewhere between roof and basement. But not for this did they hesitate for a moment. Step by step they fought the fire, as coolly as if they were practising on the parade-ground.

To Tom, eagerly watching the conflict of brain and brawn against the fierce element, it seemed that the fire was fairly under control, no blaze having been seen from the outside for some time. Kittie, it may be said, took very little notice of what was going on. Her duty having been faithfully performed, she devoted herself to nibbling softly, first at her own blanket, which she succeeded, to her great delight, in pulling completely off and then at Tom’s shoulder and hands. The three horses harnessed to an engine about a hundred feet nearer the fire had not been detached, their driver thinking them at a safe distance.

Suddenly there came a vast swirl of smoke from one of the lower stories of the burning building, accompanied by a deep, hollow boom, like a heavy cannon-shot, and followed by a fierce burst of flame which illuminated the square like daylight.

A chorus of cries from the bystanders (for a crowd had gathered, even at that time of the night), as well as from the firemen in the street, warned the men on the ladders.

“Come down! Come down!” shouted the officers and sliding, scrambling, as best they could, the hosemen obeyed.

“The walls are falling!” shrieked the crowd, as pieces of granite, slate, and glass began to thud and crackle on the pavement and there was a wild rush for safety on every side.

Tom led Kittie away hastily to a more secure standpoint, and the driver of the engine near by tried to unharness his horses. But as the warning cries of the crowd redoubled, he drew his knife and cut the traces of the three noble creatures who were now dancing and snorting with fright. Away they dashed, tangling themselves up around a lamp-post, but soon disengaged and led to a place of safety.

The engineer, meanwhile, stood at his post, watching the gauge and awaiting the order to leave his machine, which was pumping furiously and belching up a volcano of black smoke from its quivering stack.

Any moment might see another and fatal explosion, bringing down the tottering walls.

“Run for your life! It’s coming down!” sounded on every side.

But somewhere within that blazing pile were his three comrades, perhaps already killed, perhaps holding the nozzle and fighting the fire at fearful odds. It depended on him to give them the water with which they might be holding the enemy at bay. Even in the street the heat was terrible.

Brown, the engineer, wiped the sweat from his forehead with his grimy sleeve, glanced up once more at the walls, and—threw a couple of shovelfuls of coal into the fire-box! Then he oiled the running parts of the engine a little, and waited.

CHAPTER IV.
FORTY - SIX.

IN common with the rest of the crowd at the 1 fire, Tom Sherwin held his breath with suspense as he saw the brave engineer standing at his post with the flames roaring from the windows over his head, glass falling about him, and the walls ready to crumble in a glowing heap.

“Look out! Run! Leave the engine!” shouted more than one half-crazed individual outside the ropes with which a squad of police had now enclosed the square. But Brown remained, unflinching, while the engine, leaping and quivering under the tremendous pressure of steam he was giving her, forced tons of water through the line of hose that extended from the hydrant into the doomed building.

Suddenly there was a great shout, this time not of horror but of exultation, as three rubber-coated figures came staggering out of the door and into the street. One of them was the captain, and seeing Brown at his engine he motioned him away. Then, at last, the brave fellow fled with his comrades, and two minutes later the engine was crushed by the falling wall.

A perfect deluge of water was now poured in, directly upon the fire, from above and on every side. Gradually, the smoke gave place to a great pillar of white steam, which slowly diminished in volume, until but little rose from the soaked and smouldering ruins. The sun was just rising when Tom was called upon to take the chief back to his headquarters, and one piece of apparatus after another, with its group of grimy, dripping figures clinging to it, rolled off homeward. A second alarm had been ordered by the chief at the very outset, and the neighboring streets seemed filled with returning engines, hose-wagons, and ladder-trucks, at which, with their loads of weary men, the fresh morning crowds along the sidewalks stared curiously.

Tom gave Kittie a good feed and rub down, and then hurried home to eat his own breakfast and recount to his mother and Bess the exciting events of the night. The morning papers announced, what he had not before learned, that three brave firemen had been seriously injured by the first explosion, and were in the City Hospital.

Mrs. Sherwin sighed and looked worried as she heard of the story. What had happened to those men might happen to her boy any day. She wished from her heart that he had chosen some other calling, while she recognized that it was a noble career, and that Tom seemed specially fitted for it. As for Bessie, she gloried in the dangers and heroism of a fireman’s life and no shadow of doubt seemed to cross her mind that her brother would overcome all difficulties and peril.

A day or two after this fire the district chief called Tom into his private office, and talked pleasantly and kindly with him for half an hour, inquiring about his previous life, his home, and the friendships he had made in the city.

“Have you begun your lessons at the school yet?” he asked.

Tom knew that he referred to the “School i of Instruction” for firemen, which it would! be necessary for him to attend for thirty days i before being nominated for a regular position in the department.

“No, sir,” he said. “I didn’t feel that I could spare the time, I was so busy hunting for employment. I’ve been down there, though, and watched the drill once or twice.”

“Better begin at once,” said the chief.

“There’s no knowing how soon a vacancy may occur. I’ll arrange to have a man ready to take your place here for awhile each day, so that you can attend the school.”

Tom was grateful, and tried to show his appreciation of this privilege by working like a beaver in his classes at the school. Besides formal gymnastics, he soon learned how to hold a life-net properly, with bent arms, and, what was more trying to the nerves, how to drop into one from a considerable height with the least chance of injury. He assisted in raising heavy ladders, was taught the coupling and management of hose, and the best way to raise and carry an insensible person to a window and lower him or her to the ground. In these and many other details of a fireman’s duty, most of them more or less familiar to him, the instructor found Tom an apt and vigorous pupil.

Hardest of all was the use of the “pompier” or scaling ladder.- This is a single metallic rod, from thirteen to eighteen feet in length, and weighing from twenty-five to fifty pounds. At regular intervals the rod is crossed by short bars which serve as steps. The top of the pompier is bent at right angles, with notches like saw-teeth or the barbs of an arrow on the under side. This ladder is hooked over the window-sill of the first story the fireman ascends, “straddles ” the sill, and fastens the ladder to the sill above, and so on, until he has reached the topmost story of the building. Sometimes a “chain” of pompiers is made, extending up the side of the building, but usually only one is taken up by a fireman, who, on reaching the story where life is to be saved, lets down a light cord and pulls up a strong rope, by which the imperilled inmate of the burning room can be lowered to safety.

Even Tom’s clear head swam a little, the first time he mounted the dangling, swaying rod but he soon learned to go up with the swiftest, and won the praise of the instructor .by his alertness, strength, and good judgment.

When he had been in the school three weeks the chief’s regular driver returned to duty, and Tom accordingly lost his job. He determined, however, to complete his thirty days’ schooling, so as to be prepared to obey a call to the department at any moment.

In his spare time he continued to learn all he could about the work of a fireman in the city. He even lent a hand, more than once, in the engine-house nearest his home, cleaning up and assisting in the care of the horses. In this way he familiarized himself with the life of the men, and was present several times when an alarm came in and there was a lively hitch-up. Once or twice he followed the engine to a fire, and was allowed to help the firemen in some of the minor details of their actual work.

In this way three weeks were passed, and at last the day came when Tom received the document which set his feet fairly on the firm ground he had so long striven to reach. An injury to several men at a recent fire had caused as many vacancies in the working force of the department, it being uncertain when any one of them could report again for duty. Tom’s name, with others, had been laid before the fire commissioner, and he had been selected as one of the fortunate three. He was ordered to report forthwith at Engine-house 46—and this was what gave him special pleasure—with the captain and company of which he was most familiar. His rating until appointment as a permanent hoseman would be that of “man on probation ” his pay would be sixty dollars a month for the first six months, and seventy-five dollars a month thereafter until permanent appointment, when he would receive one i thousand dollars for the first year, eleven j hundred the second year, and twelve hundred thereafter. He would have one. day off in every eight, and a vacation of a fortnight each year. No member of the department is allowed to go more than a mile to his meals, but as Mrs. Sherwin lived within five minutes’ walk of the engine-house, Tom could easily sit down at table with his family three times a day, when not at a fire.

He received a hearty greeting from his comrades, all of whom seemed like old friends. There were in all five horses in the stalls one for the district chief, whose headquarters were at this house one for the hose-wagon, and three for the heavy engine. After reporting to the captain, and shaking hands with the men, of course Tom had to visit his four-legged acquaintances, who whinnied softly and rubbed their noses against him in token of good-fellowship. Even the house-cat Bob came in for a share of the greeting, and purred his good-will to the newcomer.

It was now late in November, and when Tom started homeward that evening with a light heart, for his first fireman’s supper, it was already dark. He had turned the corner, whistling, when he nearly walked plump into the arms of a bareheaded man who was running headlong in the opposite direction.

“Fire! Fire!” gasped the man, whose tone and dress indicated that he was a servant in one of the stately stone-front dwellings on the avenue near by.

“Where is it?” demanded Tom, catching the other by the shoulder. “Ju— just round the corner, sir,” stammered the servant, shaking his arm free. “Fire!”

“Hold on,” said the young fireman, sharply. “Show me where the trouble is!” Tom had learned that’ in the dwelling-house section a general alarm might often be avoided by prompt action of a man who knew his business, thus saving the city the expense of calling out the apparatus, and the horses and men the extra exertion of responding to a regular call.

The servant ran back to the comer of the avenue and pointed.

“The third house!” he screamed. “Sure it’s arl on fire, sir! Fire! Fire!” and before Tom could stop him he was off at the top of his speed.

Tom ran to the house indicated and entered through the front door, which the man had left open in his mad flight. He heard sounds of running to and fro below stairs, and the excited voices of women. Without waiting for an invitation he made his way hastily into the basement, a familiar odor of wood-smoke greeting his nostrils as he did so. On opening the door into the lower hall a strong puff of this smoke met him, and from the front of the basement came renewed cries of dismay.

A dozen steps further showed him the situation. A curtain in the kitchen, in the rear of the house, had taken fire from a flaring gas jet and a light blaze at this moment rimmed one of the windows, promising to grow to a real conflagration if given a few minutes more time. But this was precisely what Tom did not propose to allow.

On the kitchen table stood a large tureen filled with some sort of clear soup, evidently just ready to be sent up to the dining-room when the fire broke out. Paying no attention to the shrieks of the servants in the laundry, Tom seized the tureen and dashed its contents upon the blaze. Then he filled the utensil with water from a neighboring faucet and repeated the drench. One more dose proved sufficient, and, although that end of the kitchen was a sorry sight, the fire was out. The cook now came forward, bewailing the loss of her soup, and in the midst of the confusion and medley of voices the .master of the house, whose guests were patiently awaiting their first course in the room overhead, appeared at the door of the steaming, besplashed room, and in strong language demanded an explanation.

Tom, who could scarcely restrain an outburst of laughter at the irate gentleman’s expression as he stood in the doorway in his dress suit, briefly narrated what had happened, and, giving the number of his company, took his leave. Just as he emerged from the door he met his engine, which had been summoned by the servant, and had responded at full speed without sending in an alarm to headquarters. Tom laughingly explained to the captain, and, leaving the men to look the place over, once more turned homeward for his supper.

It was a jolly meal, both the newspaper men being present and Tom evoked shouts of laughter by his description of the frantic servant and the pompous gentleman whose kitchen was so unexpectedly turned topsyturvy. Bessie seized a piece of paper and drew a sketch of Tom discharging the contents of the soup-tureen upon the fire, and Larkin was with difficulty restrained from writing the whole thing up for the morning Bulletin, illustrated by Miss Sherwin’s drawing!

When Tom returned to the engine-house, he found himself the hero of the day, and it was long before any allusion to “Sherwin’s Patent Extinguisher” failed to bring a laugh, in that particular circle.

There were in the company, besides Tom, the captain, lieutenant, engineer, assistant engineer, and eight hosemen, one of whom acted as driver. There was always a man in the lower or “apparatus-room” on duty as “house-patrol,” day and night. Usually he was one of three lower officers of the company, his position being an important and responsible one. The house-patrol has general charge of the apparatus-room, being accountable for the conduct of the men on that floor, and receiving their reports of absence and return. He keeps the company journal, entering in it all facts of the slightest importance during his “watch,” as it would be called at sea.

Most important of all, it is the house-patrol who receives an alarm of fire, calls up the men and horses, makes note of the number of the box sent in, and announces the same to the officer in charge. It may easily be seen that any blunder in noting and recording the number, or any sleeping or carelessness on the part of the patrol, might result in enormous loss of life or property at a fire.

While the patrol was seated at his desk down-stairs that evening, the rest of the men on duty were gathered in the reading-room up-stairs, smoking or reading. This was the time corresponding to the first dog-watch” on board ship, for spinning yarns and fighting over again their battles with fire. Not a man present, of the permanent force, but had some thrilling experience to relate, when he found the right sort of listener.

One of the hosemen, Dave Burns, was telling the story that evening, of a curious fire down-town some years before. When the apparatus arrived a conflagration was already under good headway, and successive alarms were sent in until every engine, ladder-truck and hose-wagon in the city were on hand and their companies engaged in the fight.

“We found that the fire,” said Dave, “had started in the very centre of a big building packed full of fancy goods,—just the kind of fuel it liked. Windows were bursting out every minute or two, and it fairly rained glass in the street where we were working. Well, we got the chuck off our engine, and pretty soon we were rigged for a ‘deluge’ stream, ‘Twenty-four’ connecting with the same hydrant. By this time the ladders were going up and we were ordered up with the hose and the big nozzle. I tell you, it was no easy job getting Up to the third story, for there was something inside that sent out a greenish smoke with the black, fit to choke you inside of a minute. It was a cold night in the middle of winter, and the wind was blowing hard. One minute we’d be half-choked and roasted from the out-draught from the windows, and the next there wouldn’t be a blaze in sight as big as your hand, and that northwest breeze would make a fellow fairly shake with cold.

“Well, we got our position and the line well made fast, and then we called for water. There were two of us,—all that could work together just there,—and for a minute or two after that inch-and-a-half stream came I thought ’twould get the best of us. But it steadied down and pretty soon it began to tell on the fire. We just let her go, right through a third story window, and trusted the water to hunt up the trouble and attend to it, when it once got inside.

“To make a bad matter worse, they got a powerful stream into the same story from the rear, and every few minutes it got the range of our window and nearly knocked us off the ladder.

“But the fun was down below in the street. It wasn’t long, you see, before water was sizzling into that building from a dozen and more lines, and a good part of it, having done its work, trundled down the front stairs. I heard one of the men say afterward there was a fair-sized river pouring out of the front door into the street, and rolling away along the curb.

“Pretty soon some one in the crowd sings out, ‘Hullo! the water’s full o’ diamonds!’ and makes a dive for a five-hundred-dollar breast-pin in the gutter.

“Sure enough, the stream had carried away a whole consignment of cheap jewelry, stick-pins, brooches, combs, and what-not, and the way the crowd settled down on them was a caution. There must have been many a girl in North End next day just shining with glass emeralds and rubies! ”

“Well, Dave, when did the ‘all-out’ ring in?” asked some one, when the laugh subsided.

“Oh, we got it under after about two hours solid work, and by one o’clock we made up and cantered home. I got that scar on the back of my hand that night.”

“How?” asked Tom, with interest.

“Glass,” returned Dave, briefly. “In old times it used to be slates, but nowadays it’s the heavy plate glass that does the mischief.”

Tom was glad his mother didn’t hear that, but he was eager for more stories.

“That was a tight place Chief Egan was in,” said one of the men, presently “hanging on a telegraph wire, five stories high, over the street!”

“You’re right there. Any other man would have dropped.”

“I shall be glad when Christmas is over,” said another.

“Why?” asked inquisitive Tom.

“Somebody’ll be sure to set fire to his house with the candles on the tree.”

“And the worst of it is, there’s generally loss of life in a Christmas-tree fire,” broke in the assistant engineer. “Do you remember that fire in a New York school last December?”

“What was it?”

“They had a fourteen-year-old girl, poor child, for Santa Claus, and some of her trimmings caught from a gas jet. Then the tree took fire, and of course there was a panic. One of the teachers sat down at the piano and called for the children to form a line while she played a march. The smoke came thicker and hotter every minute, but she stuck to her post and kept on playing till the last child had left the room. Then she herself escaped without injury.”

“And Santa Claus?”

The man shook his head. “She couldn’t recover. There’s an awful sight of carelessness, I tell you, at these celebrations. If they must have a tree, they ought to rig it with electric lights. If they can’t afford that, half a dozen candles, carefully placed, are just as good as fifty and there should be a pail of water in the room, so that the first blaze could be drowned out. Fifteen seconds later, maybe, old Forty-six, down below, couldn’t do it.”

“It’s astonishing what faith people have in a fireman at such a time,” spoke up one of the company, who had been thus far a listener. “I remember going to a big Dickens’ Carnival in the Mechanics’ Fair Building one evening when I was a boy. That enormous auditorium was just jammed. The performance was going on, when the covering of the proscenium somehow took fire, and a blaze crept right up forty feet, before the eyes of the audience. ‘Fire! Fire!’ a hundred voices sung out, and there was a rush for the exits. But before the aisles were fairly filled, a young fellow in navy blue was seen clambering up the framework toward the blaze. As he turned his head toward the audience they caught sight of the silver cross on his cap. ‘It’s a fireman! A fireman! ’ shouted the crowd and I wish you could have heard the difference in tone, from the screams of ‘Fire’ just before! The band began to play a jolly tune, the fireman pulled down the blazing stuff,—it was an easy enough job, just scorching his hands a little, so that he got an extra day off!—the people settled into their places again, and the entertainment went on. Only a few nervous folks left the hall.”

“Half the fires that call us out,” grumbled one of the first speakers, “could be squelched like that, if people kept their heads and did the right thing the moment the fire broke out — ”

“Like Sherwin, with the soup!” And Tom came in for a laugh again.

“Do you remember that windy night last February —” began Dave but he did not finish his sentence. A sound fell on the ears of the company, from below stairs. It was the first clear tap of the little joker bell, over the patrol’s desk.

Before the big gong could sound chairs had been flung aside, and the men were jumping for the pole. At the same time arose a thunderous clatter of hoofs over the floor as the horses came plunging from the stalls. Tom leaped with the rest, and sliding down the pole like a cat, sprang to his place on the hose-wagon, in front of which a fine black horse was already pawing the floor, eager for his harness. Ten seconds later the doors swung open, and with a rattle and clang the engine was off down the street, with the hose wagon close behind it, in a whirl of smoke and sparks. It was Tom Sherwin’s first real call to a fire.

CHAPTER V.
A DOWN-TOWN FIRE.

“LET’em out, Murphy!” shouted the cap-tain of Forty-six, as the horses struck their gait in the paved trolley track. Although the fire was well down-town, at the extreme limit of the area in which this engine had to respond to alarms, it already showed plainly, sending up a column of reddened smoke into the night sky.

The captain and engineer, with the latter’s assistant, were sticking to the rear step on the machine, pulling at the bell constantly to warn all teams on side streets as the engine, with fire now crackling under its boiler, and throwing volumes of smoke and sparks out of the polished brass stack, thundered down the long avenue, the three splendid horses at full gallop. They soon overtook an electric car, swerved out of the track with a rattle and crash, and on it again ahead of the car. Small boys on the sidewalk ran shouting after the machine, and staid gentlemen forgot their dignity to join the rout, as the glow in the sky ahead steadily increased.

Clinging to the central bar of the hose-wagon Tom managed to get on his helmet and rubber coat, like the rest, as the wagon clattered along just behind the engine. It was a totally new and thrilling experience to him, for although he had driven the chief’s light wagon to a number of fires, he never had been allowed to ride on one of the larger apparatus, so strict are the regulations in that respect. As the wagon slewed out of the track to pass the car he was nearly thrown off. Burns, who was next him, grabbed his arm at the nick of time, admonishing him gruffly to “hang on with his fingers and toes—he’d need ’em all before long!”

It was no use to try for “first water”—always a point of emulation among the engine companies—as another engine-house was much nearer the scene of the conflagration but old Forty-six reached her hydrant in an astonishingly short space of time. On went the coupling, and away trotted the wagon, leaving a lengthening line of hose behind it. The fire was in a moderately high building with stores in the lower floor, and dwellings above. Tom was ordered in at the main front entrance, with two or three others, dragging the hose. The captain, followed by a couple of men with axes, sprang up-stairs ahead of them, and were soon heard battering at a door on the next floor. The “Protective” men were already at work in the lower stores and basement, spreading rubbers.

“Come on, boys!” Tom heard the captain shout, down through the smoke. He followed the voice blindly, with Burns at his side. Reaching the next floor, they found a doorway open from which dense volumes of black smoke were pouring.

“He can’t be in there!” gasped Tom, recoiling, in spite of himself, before the fumes.

“He is, though!” said Burns. “Drop on your hands and knees, and keep your head, youngster. That’s the way! All right, Cap!”

As the captain reappeared, lantern in hand, a lurid glow suddenly lighted up the farther end of the room.

“Stay where you are, men!” he ordered. “I’ll have water for you in a minute.”

He groped his way to a window, and they heard his voice calling out, hoarsely, “Play away, Forty-six!” over and over.

Presently the nozzle gave a squirm, and a welcome bubbling and hissing told that the precious ammunition had reached the fighters.

“Let her go, straight ahead!” shouted the captain, above the ripping, tearing splash of the fierce stream that now almost wrenched the nozzle from the hands of the two men.

“Watch out, and don’t get caught. I’m going up higher.”

It seemed to Tom as if he could not remain there a minute longer. He was half suffocated with smoke, and the heat from the fire was almost unbearable but he knew that he and Dave were holding an important point in the fight, and he resolved that he would drop in his tracks rather than yield. A fierce energy took possession of him, a passion as if he were contending with the very power of evil. It thrilled him with delight to hear the hiss of the vanquished flames, and see the clouds of steam roll out as the powerful stream thrashed its way to and fro across the glowing fortress, where the enemy was entrenched.

Crash! came a sound overhead, followed by a dull roar from the crowd outside. For a moment the smoke thinned, and Tom breathed more easily.

“It’s a puff-out in the upper story,” said Burns, hoarsely. “The smoke’s following the new draught for a minute. Look out when it turns this way again!”

There was no need of the warning, for the fire, having flaunted its red banners out of the upper windows for a moment, returned with redoubled fury to defend its vulnerable point, where that deadly stream of water was striking at its very life.

Tom saw Dave turn his helmet so as to protect his face with the flap, and followed his example. The heat was now terrific. It was impossible to remain where they were, and live. Step by step the two men backed toward the door, the flames roaring and seething triumphantly at their retreat. Just as they reached the door there was a terrific crash, a blinding glow of red light, and the first Tom knew he was on his back in the stairway with a river of cold water pouring over and around him in the darkness.

“Close call, that!” he heard Dave shout. “Ceiling dropped through and carried our floor down with it. Get up, youngster—are ye able?—our relief has come!”

Tom scrambled, splashing, to his feet, and the two crept cautiously down the stairs, and emerged in the street, blackened, blistered, and drenched, while the relieving firemen attacked the enemy with renewed vigor.

It was evident that the fire was getting the best of it. A second alarm had been ordered by the chief, within five minutes of his arrival on the scene. A third was now sounded, and apparatus poured in from all sides, the black columns of smoke from the engines mingling with the huge volume that ascended from the burning building and hung over the North End like a pall.

And now was enacted a thrilling incident in which our hero had no part beyond that of a breathless spectator.

One of the ladders which had been raised rested against the wall just above the fourth story windows, through which a couple of firemen were directing a stream when a scream from somewhere overhead caused them to look up so suddenly that they nearly lost the nozzle. This is what they and the crowd saw.

A woman had been somehow forgotten—perhaps she had been asleep, or half stupefied with smoke. She reached the open window of her room directly over the two men, and, uttering scream after scream, began to climb out over the sill. Cries of horror and warning rose from the crowd, and the firemen could be seen gesticulating to keep her back.

But the roar of the red flames behind her was more powerful than the voices below, and she deliberately lowered herself, until she hung at full length from the sill, at least six feet above the top of the ladder, and five stories above the pavements where firemen were rushing in a frenzy for the life-net and vainly shouting for her to remain where she was.

Meanwhile the two men on the ladder were not idle. .They were both, as it happened, members of Tom’s company, the lieutenant and a hoseman who had just finished his probation. Seeing that the woman was determined to drop, the lieutenant, leaving the hose as it was (lashed to the ladder at the point of attack), ordered the hoseman to the street, while, as the woman forced herself out of the window, he mounted to the last rung of the ladder but two, calling to her to hold on, he would surely rescue her if she obeyed his directions.

His comrade slid rapidly down, clutching the sides of the ladder with hands and knees, and in an instant the projected manoeuvre of the lieutenant was apparent to the admiring but shuddering throng that pressed against the ropes. Half a dozen firemen sprang to the foot of the ladder and the poles or props which had been used in raising it, and swayed it outward until the top was nearly a yard from the face of the building. The lieutenant now climbed to the last rung but one, and, bracing himself as firmly as possible against the sides of the quivering, swaying summit of the ladder, held up his arms and called to the woman to drop!

It was a fearful sight, and many a strong man in the crowd turned his head away, giddy at the very thought of balancing himself on that slender support at such a height and receiving the shock of the falling woman.

There was a moment’s pause then a roar of exultation rolled up from the streets as the fireman was seen still clinging to the ladder and holding the limp form of the woman in his arms. In two minutes more both were safely down, and none too soon, for the flames burst so fiercely from the window below that the ladder was actually burned nearly through before it could be removed.

While these exciting events were taking place on the front side of the building, others hardly less thrilling occurred, as Tom afterward learned, in the rear. It seemed that this portion of the premises was occupied, on the upper floors, by a large printing-office, where several men and girls were at work when the fire broke out. At the first alarm they ran for the main stairway, but were driven back into the composing-room by smoke and flame.

“The scuttle!” some one cried. “We can get out on the roof!”

Up a narrow stairway they hurried madly, to a low-studded loft which was used as a storeroom. It was pitch-dark, and no one had a lantern. They soon found, however, the foot of the steep flight of steps leading to the scuttle, and one of the men scrambled up, the rest pressing close behind.

In vain the man at the top fumbled at the hasp. It would not yield. The smoke in the loft became stifling.

“I can’t get it open!” he gasped. “It’s locked. Let me down!”

He turned distractedly and pushed. Down went the whole ladder-full to the floor, head over heels in the darkness. The bruises, the smoke, the sensation of being burned in a trap made them wild. The screams of the girls added to the panic.

Leaving one of their number stunned on the floor of the loft (they did not miss him until an hour later!) they scrambled downstairs again to the composing-room, where they now could hardly breathe for the smoke and heat.

Not until this minute had any one thought of the fire-escape! At the suggestion there was a rush for the window, and, one after the other, all (except the forgotten comrade in the loft, who was discovered by the firemen half an hour afterward, too late to save his life) crept down the iron stairway to a narrow platform or balcony at its base. Here they huddled together a moment in uncertainty, there being no way to reach the flat third-story roof, ten feet below.

“We’ve got to jump,” said one of the men. “I’ll go first.” And he hung off and dropped.

“Look out for the skylight!” he shouted back, as he rolled away from beneath the fire-escape. “It’s almost under you!”

All the men now followed, but one, an exceptionally tall, awkward fellow, not very well liked in the composing-room. His name was Andy.

There were two girls still crouching on the escape, frenzied with fear. They would have plunged after the men, but Andy would not let them.

“Wait till I hang down,” said he, gruffly, kneeling at the edge of the platform. “Then put your arms and legs around me and slide down, so as to drop from my feet. See?”

It was accomplished with safety, though it was a severe strain on Andy’s arms. The girls, one after the other, followed his directions, and thus had a clean drop of not more than two or three feet. As it was, one of them came perilously near crashing through the skylight.

The rest of the way was easy. A scuttle was found, fortunately unlocked, and the refugees descended in safety to the street.

Their place on the flat roof was almost immediately taken by firemen, who, led by the district chief, emerged through the scuttle, dragging a length of hose. By means of a “pompier,” hooked over the escape, and mounted by one man after another, they obtained access to the main building, carried in their line at the window through which the printers had escaped, and attacked the fire fiercely from this new vantage-ground. While in the building one of the hosemen, seeking an outlet to the roof, stumbled over the lifeless form of the abandoned man.

Of all this Tom knew nothing until he read the papers the next morning, for he was kept busy, as we have seen, on the other side of the building, where the main attack was conducted. Indeed, the first he heard of the thrilling escape and rescue was from Bessie, next morning, when he went home for breakfast. She was full of the news, and read aloud the detailed account in the Bulletin.

“I wish I’d been assigned to that fire,” said Larkin, disconsolately, as he listened. “I’d have put Thomas in that gang of firemen who went up, and had him do all the rescuing!”

To return to the fire itself, the conflict now seemed an even one. Beaten back at one point, the flames burst out at another. Tom was stationed on a ladder raised against the adjoining building, and a hard place he found it in the five or ten minutes before he was relieved.

The crowd was pressed farther and farther back, until the firemen had plenty of room to work in. The streets were flooded, and long lines of hose lay like serpents of impossible length, hissing and throbbing, while ton upon ton of water was forced through them, to be dashed upon the stubborn -conflagration.

By this time the water-tower was at work, pouring a tremendous stream directly in upon the heart of the fire, which yielded sullenly to the onslaught. Great clouds of steam rose from the open roof, the red blaze was fairly drowned out, firemen attacked the enemy from half a dozen new points of vantage, and complete victory was only a question of minutes.

The welcome order to “make up” came at last. When Tom joined the rest of his company in “ backing out” the muddy, dripping lengths of hose from the building, dragging it and stowing it in the wagon, he was pretty well fagged out. It was after one o’clock when old “Forty-six” was backed into her house, the hose hung up in the tower to dry, and fresh lengths stowed in the wagon. Men and horses were glad to turn in for a few hours of sleep.

A few days after these exciting experiences Tom was at work in the large apparatus-room, cleaning up. It was early in the forenoon, and the sun was shining in brightly upon the gleaming brass and steel of the engine, while Tom scrubbed away at the floor and the metal work of the doors and rails, whistling at his work when a head was seen at the window of the side door, peering in at the new recruit. Looking up, Tom was by no means pleased to see the disagreeable features of his old acquaintance, Rawson Black.

Reluctantly he admitted the visitor, and still more reluctantly took his proffered hand in greeting.

“Permanent job at last, eh, old fellow?” asked Black, unable to keep his old-time sneer out of his tones, although he was evidently anxious, for some reason, to make a good impression.

“Yes,” replied Tom, rather shortly. “I’m in the department now. Anything special you want?”

“Oh, only to look round a little. Can’t you show me the place? I never was in an engine-house before.”

The captain was out, and Tom, with no very good grace, reported the visit to the lieutenant, then on duty at the desk, and proceeded to exhibit the premises and apparatus as briefly and formally as he could. Black seemed immensely interested in everything, scrutinized the engine, the wagon, and especially the hose with a critical eye, and asked a good many questions concerning the practical working of the machine at a fire.

“Are you thinking of joining the department?” asked Tom, at length, mystified by the other’s interest in these matters.

“Oh, maybe,” said he, carelessly. “Doesn’t your, hose ever burst, when you’re playing on a fire?”

“Sometimes, but not so often as where they used the old rubber hose.”

“What happens when it does?”

“Why,” said Tom, more puzzled than ever, “of course it affects the stream—diminishes the force more or less according to the escape of water through the hole. What do you want to know for?”

“Nothing, nothing just curiosity,” replied Black, moving away from the wagon. “Say, Sherwin, couldn’t you let me inside the lines if I got near you at a fire?”

“No,” said Tom “it’s not allowed.” It would be as much as my position’s worth, that is, unless you were called on to help, in an emergency. I was, the very first fire I ever went to.”

“I remember,” said Black, with his unpleasant smile, “made a hero of you, didn’t it?”

“What else do you want to see here?” demanded Tom, liking the other’s manner less than ever. “I’ve got to get back to my work.”

“Oh, I’ve seen enough I guess. Needn’t be so stiff, Sherwin. I never did you any harm.”

Tom opened his mouth to reply, but thought better of it, and taking up his scrubbing-brush turned abruptly from his disagreeable visitor.

“So long!” said Black, carelessly, sauntering to the door, and, to Tom’s relief, closing it behind him.

“You’d better keep your eye on that fellow, if you see him round at a fire,” observed Fred as they talked the matter over at the supper-table that night.

“Oh, his bark’s worse than his bite, I guess,” laughed Tom, leaning back in his chair. “What harm could he do?”

“Plenty. I’ve known men to perform tricks on public occasions that go almost beyond belief for sheer unmeaning ugliness. For instance, in the big torchlight procession just before the last election I saw a man in the crowd press up close as a mounted section went by, and give one of the horses a terrible dig with his penknife. The police didn’t see it but the rider did, and brought his torch-staff down on the ugly fellow’s head in a way he’ll remember for awhile yet.”

“People think the police are pretty rough, sometimes, in keeping the crowd back from processions,” added Morton Rowe, quietly, “but they know just what to be prepared for. That same thing happened to a mounted officer on the governor’s staff, Fred. He told me about it himself, the next day.” “But what about that Rawson Black?” broke in Bessie, impetuously, pronouncing the man’s name as if he were a peculiarly unpleasant variety of reptile. “Tom doesn’t ride to a fire on horse-back!”

“No, but there’s plenty of other kinds of mischief. The knife that can stab a horse can cut a line of hose, for instance.”

“Why, what possible object could there be in doing that?” asked Mrs. Sherwin.

“Oh, native-born ugliness would be enough reason,” said Larkin, soberly. “There might be other motives for wishing to spoil that particular stream. I don’t like Black’s making such careful inquiries about bursting hose and the results of such a break.”

The young reporter and newspaper-man now seemed a part of the family. Mrs. Sherwin, who had carefully observed their conduct, language, and manner since they came to her house as boarders, liked them thoroughly. Will was greatly taken with Fred Larkin, and often talked over his literary prospects with the Bulletin reporter, whose experience enabled him to give his friend many practical hints. Through his influence Will obtained a special commission to supply the Bulletin with college items, reports of athletic sports, and the like. These were paid for at space rates, and though the total returns were comparatively small, they enabled the young student to pay his personal expenses from week to week, with sometimes a dollar or two over to place in his mother’s lap. At about this time he began, with Larkin’s advice, to write short sketches and stories, and send them to family weeklies. There were many rejections, but the two, three and five dollar cheques that the mail occasionally brought from these periodicals kept well ahead of the stationery and postage bill—which, Fred assured him, constituted a “howling success,” during the first year of authorship.

Bessie gained constantly in her studies, and kept in view her main purpose, to fit herself for giving music-lessons as soon as possible. She was the sunshine of the house. In the evening she worked hard at her books, and Morton Rowe, whenever he could take the time from his newspaper work, helped her over the hard places in algebra and geometry. Mathematics were his delight, and it is to be assumed that it was wholly to gratify this taste that he spent so many evenings in the cozy Sherwin “living-room,” discoursing of a^2 and b^2, or drawing triangles and parallels, instead of going out “with the boys,” or seeking his entertainment elsewhere.

In this way the month wore on, and Christmas was close at hand. Tom found that the position of hoseman was no sinecure, and although there were no large fires to which his company was summoned, there were innumerable small ones and “still alarms” in his neighborhood, to which Engine Forty-six responded, through deep snow or over icy pavements, in sunshine and by moonlight, whether the skies were blue or sleet was cutting the faces of man and horse as they hurried to obey the call of duty.

He had almost forgotten the visit of Rawson Black, and Fred Larkin’s warning but the time was near when he was to remember both.

CHAPTER VI.
CHRISTMAS EVE.

“I TELL you it can’t be done!”

“And I tell you it can be done, and you’re just the man we want to do it, Black.” The two men were seated in a dingy office in the rear of a large, old-fashioned building not far from the water-side. Indeed its one dirty, cobwebbed window looked out upon a wharf which was so shut in from the sunlight that its piers were rotting and its surface blotched with oozy patches of green. Beyond, through a gap between two lofty, modern warehouses, could be seen the blue waters and white sails of the harbor.

Rawson Black shuffled his feet on the floor uneasily and looked out of the window and around the dirty room,—everywhere except in his companion’s eye, which flashed with suppressed impatience.

“Well?”

“It would be five years at least if I should be caught, Pickens.”

“Nonsense only ‘malicious mischief,’ with ninety days or a small fine which the rest of us would make up for you. I’m the man that runs the real risk.’Twould be twenty years for me, at least. But you won’t be caught. All you have to do is to start a flurry in the crowd once or twice, stoop down as if you stumbled, and do the trick each time. If we can gain the first three minutes, the fire will do the rest.”

“Why don’t you yourself cut —”

“Hush!” said Pickens, sharply, looking toward the door. “Don’t be so plain-spoken, even here. I can’t attend to both .ends of the scheme at once, you —” He stifled the epithet in his throat with an effort and went on. “As soon as I’ve attended to the inside duties I must be off, and if a fire should break out in that locality half an hour later, I would be at the other end of the city—see?”

The two men leaned toward each other, across the table, and talked long and earnestly, referring now and then to a sort of printed map of plan, portraying on a large scale a section of the city, with street, buildings, and owners plainly set forth. Several blue crosses had been added, with the explanatory word “Hydrant” at each. When Rawson Black and his friend Pickens separated, after their protracted conference, it would seem that an amicable agreement had been reached, for they shook hands warmly before going on their ways.

In the Sherwin house, just at this time, the spirit of Christmas was having full sway. Bessie’s brown eyes twinkled, with the secrets behind them. The two newspaper-men came home with their pockets bulging, and went up to their rooms, two steps at a time, to discharge their cargo into secure hiding-places. Tom had but little time to go shopping, but he, too, had his secret preparations made, and in his bureau drawer was a parcel containing a pretty scarf for his little sister and another with a volume of poems for his mother.

As had been predicted, the firemen were kept busy at this season. Faulty chimneys permitted sparks to escape in dangerous proximity to dry sheathing and laths, overheated flues first blistered, then scorched, and finally kindled unseen flames that threatened—and sometimes resulted in—serious conflagrations evergreen festoons, suspended in hot rooms, became dry as tinder and invited the touch of the stray match, carelessly flung aside while still smouldering.

The sound of the “joker” became unpleasantly familiar to the members of Forty-six until they never turned in, at night, without the full expectation of interrupted slumbers, and a sudden transition from a warm bed to the bleak and snowy streets, before morning.

One of these night runs was on a third alarm, calling the far-off engine to the harbor front, where an excursion steamer and the adjacent wharf and dock buildings were found to be burning fiercely, while above them hung a column of dense smoke from a cargo of baled hay which had been landed a few days before.

Most of the pieces of apparatus in the city were already on hand and in active service, although the mass of water poured upon the conflagration thus far seemed to have only increased its fury. Tom noticed one splendid stream that seemed to come from the harbor itself, and as the smoke lifted, a moment later, he discovered that it was sent by the fire-boat, which, as it happened, he had never before seen at work. She was now doing splendid execution, sending a tremendous stream exactly where it would do the most good, as was evidenced by the angry clouds of steam that arose wherever the hissing jet was turned. Tom knew—for he had heard all about the fire-boat—that she was pouring into the heart of the fire several thousand gallons of water a minute, and the stream was so powerful that wooden cornices and frame-work were shattered by its force.

The fire in the buildings on the wharf was soon under control, and the fire-boat, getting a hawser attached (with great risk to the men detailed for this difficult task) to the bows of the burning steamer, towed the glowing, sputtering hulk down the harbor, where she was left to smoulder on the flats, out of the way of passing vessels.

The return to the engine-house, after a fire at night and in the dead of winter, is the least cheerful, so to speak, of the fireman’s duties. The snow clogs the wheels of the hose-wagon, there is none of the excitement of the dash toward the fire,—the reddening sky, the hurry of crowds, the clanging gongs of other pieces of apparatus, the rush to the nearest hydrant for “first water.” On the return trip the horses are compelled to move at a slow trot, or, if the going is heavy, at a walk the men are tired and grimy and sleepy the way seems long.

Tom found himself next to a jolly Irishman on the wagon, as the horse plodded along between the rails of the street-car track. Mike Riordan was usually full of fun, but to-night even he seemed out of temper. Tom, mounting just as the wagon started, found Mike referring in no uncertain tones to the weather, the smoke with which he had been half choked while hooking out hay-bales, and besides these unpleasant features of the late fire, a new grievance.

“Sure, I was jest howlding the poipe wid Billy there,” said he, “an’ was gettin’ a good belt at the blaze, whan the stream began to die out till’twas nothin’ but a dribble—an’ me an’ Bill roastin’ feminst a big pile o’ smokin’ hay—bad luck to it!—like as we was pourin’ Water on it from a tay-kittle!” A roar of laughter from the rest of the men, tired and cross as they were, greeted Mike’s lugubrious tones.

“Ay, ye may laugh, ye spalpeens,” continued Mike, coughing violently from the effects of the smoke he had swallowed, “but I can tell yez’twas no joke on us, was it, Billy?”

“Not much,” said the hoseman referred to, with a grin. “I’m glad the cap’n wasn’t on hand to hear your remarks, Mike!”

“I sung out, ‘What’s the matter wid ye?’” said the young Irishman, ignoring the allusion to his forcible language. “‘Give us water! Play away, Forty-six!’ But the water didn’t come. ‘Sure, it’s a bust in the hose,’ says I. An’ thin the stream stops altogether, an’ we hear the lieutenant orderin’ us out, while Thirteen’s men took our place with another hose. An’ what do you s’pose was the matter, byes? Why, it wasn’t an honest bust at all, at all, but some mean scamp had cut the line, stabbed and slashed it, so that it’s got to go over to the shop for repairs. What d’ye think o’ that?”

Various were the angry comments that followed, but the men were too tired even to grumble, and more than once they had to jump off and walk a bit to ease the drag on the weary horse, whose driver vowed he’d apply to the chief for a tandem “helper,” if this weather continued.

Of course Fred Larkin said, “I told you so!” when the slashed hose formed the topic of conversation at the breakfast-table next morning. “There’s nothing one of those low-down fellows won’t do, out of sheer love of mischief,” said he, “and usually they are so mixed up with the crowd—they almost always choose a dark night for their tricks—that they get off scot-free.”

“If our men caught one at his little game it would go hard with him,” observed Tom, sipping his coffee. “It might easily cost a fireman his life, having the water give out suddenly.”

“I remember a fire not long ago,” said Larkin, “where that very thing happened. The first knowledge of the fire, as I recollect it, came through an automatic alarm. At about the same time I happened to be passing along the street—it was late in the evening—on my way back to the office from a Salvation Army assignment, when I saw red smoke coming out of a second-story window, and sent in an alarm from Box Fifty-two—the dreaded ‘Big Fire’ box, you know.

“When the firemen arrived the whole second floor was ablaze, and the flames were just beginning to burst out from the windows. The district chief in charge evidently had in mind the events of’72 and’93, for he ordered a second and third alarm. By the time the pieces arrived in response to the last call, the fire had reached the fourth floor, and was steadily working its way into the fifth. The water-tower was busy, but a long ladder was placed against the front of the building, and swarmed with men attacking three stories at once through the windows.

“It was awfully cold, and ladder, hose, and men were coated with ice. Just as they got a splendid stream in on the fourth story, where the fire was the hottest, the water slackened and almost stopped. Of course they shouted to the men in the street to ‘play away,’ but the water didn’t come. The fire saw its advantage and burst out of the windows, and for a minute I thought those men were gone. They were entirely hidden by the smoke, and we knew that the ladder was covered with ice, and so clogged with men clinging to it for their lives that no one could get down in a hurry.

“Well, when the smoke blew away a little we could see those brave fellows away up there at the top, huddled together with their helmets turned, waiting patiently for water. They were scorched and choked, but they wouldn’t give in till the captain had repeated his order twice, and got word to them that their hose was cut and useless.”

“Did they get the fire out?” asked Bessie, breathlessly.

“Oh, yes,—or it would be burning now,” replied Fred, with a comic twinkle in his eye. “ Another line was sent up, and this time they got their stream in all right and beat the fire out on its own ground. But the villain that cut that hose had been pretty nearly responsible for the loss of two lives, just the same.”

Bessie gasped and looked at Tom, who laughed as he rose and took Bis leave. His mother accompanied him to the door. “Do be careful, dear,” she whispered, with her hand on his shoulder. “If anything should take you from me—I”

Tom stooped and kissed her. “Don’t you worry, mother dear,” said he. “I’ll look out for myself, and we’ll have a merry Christmas together day after to-morrow. The captain will give me an extra hour, I guess, and we’ll all have a jolly time together. Good-by!” and he was gone.

Mrs. Sherwin returned slowly to the breakfast-room, now deserted by the young men, and began to gather up the plates in silence. Whether from Fred Larkin’s story, or because of the dull weather,—for the skies that morning were cold and gray,—she felt strangely depressed. Bessie sang like a chickadee at her work, helping her mother, but the anxiety did not lift.

As for Tom, he pursued his way back to the engine-house, whistling as he strode along. Little he cared for gloomy skies, save as they might send snow to clog the wheels of old Forty-six, for which he had conceived a sort of affection, as if it were a living thing. He glanced about him with a fireman’s practiced eye, and for the hundredth time wished that the big piano factory, with its adjoining lumber yard, were not so near his own home. “If that should get well alight,” he said to himself (for the hundredth time), “and the wind happened to be northeast, our house would go, sure.” Then he consoled himself with the reflection that, from the very nature of the business and the risk involved, the factory was under extra watch, day and night. “A danger that is known is no danger,” he quoted to himself. “I wish that old shop was out of the way, though!”

The shop referred to was a three-story wooden building abutting on the lumberyard on one side and his mother’s house on the other. It had been used as a carpenter’s shop, a painter and glazier’s, and a carriage storehouse,—all of which establishments had successively failed. For the past three months the building had been empty, and the cobwebs had gathered across the panes that is, nearly empty. Down in one corner was a small, musty office, which purported to be occupied by an “Insurance and Real Estate Agency.” As the agent, a little, rusty, dusty old man like the building itself, never spent more than an hour or two a day in the office, and was principally occupied in examining files of newspapers, through clouds of tobacco-smoke, when he was there, the building might still be considered empty. Rats and mice and the dusty old man did not count—at least in Tom’s estimation. The occupancy was just enough to keep the insurance policy on the premises valid, and no more. As the young fireman passed he saw the soles of the agent’s boots elevated on the window-sill, while the owner smoked his pipe and, as usual, blinked over his morning paper. Tom nodded and went his way, dismissing the old shop and itB solitary occupant from his mind, and only pausing on his rapid walk to throw a benevolently soft snowball at an urchin who had pelted him and dodged around a street corner.

Twice during the day, and again before dawn the following morning, he was called out with the rest to answer alarms for small fires in the vicinity. Two of the three were caused by carelessness in regard to Christmas decorations and on leaving the house after a hurried breakfast—for he was now gaining the time he was to have free the next evening—he warned Bessie, who was busy with her evergreens, to keep every semblance of a light away from them. He allowed none to be hung around the gas-fixtures or mantels, and mentally resolved that, wherever they were, they should come down on the 26th. It was only his love for his little sister and his reluctance to spoil her pretty pleasure in the Christmas custom, that prevented him from vetoing the whole proceeding.

About the middle of the forenoon of the day before Christmas, the clouds which had darkened the sky since midnight kept their promise and sent down the first wavering crystals of snow, powdering the streets, collecting in little ridges along the sidewalks, and filling the children’s hearts with delight, all over the city. It was true Christmas weather, permitting the strong and boisterous to work or play out-of-doors, if they wished or were obliged to but driving to the cozy warmth and glow of the home fireside the countless thousands who were gladdened by the joy of the glad season.

Bessie put the last touches on her decorations, gave a loving look to the dainty packages in her bureau drawer, neatly tied with ribbons and labelled “Mother,” “Will,” “Tom,” “Mr. Larkin,” and “Mr. Rowe,”—all “From Bessie, with a Merry Christmas!” Will was spending the day at home, there being no recitations or lectures at colleg6. The two young newspaper-men dodged in and out, unable to command their own time, but making the most of the half-hours ^they could spend in the hospitable Sherwin home. They promised to look in, at least, at the real celebration between seven and eight, when Tom would be with them. Mrs. Sherwin tried to keep her face as bright as those about her, but she had not yet been able to shake off the depression which had seized her two days before and, moreover, the holiday recalled to her, as it always does to those of mature years, the happiness of Christmas past, when the dear one was with them. So the day wore away, the storm increasing hour by hour, the wind blowing steadily from the northeast, the air filled with white tossing billows of snow.

A scorching curtain, two chimney fires, and a blazing Christmas tree had called Forty-six out four times that wild day. Men and horses were weary from their successive struggles through the deepening drifts. Again and again the pavements in front of the big doors were cleared, only to be heaped once more with whirling snow within a few minutes. Tom glanced at the clock and thought of home. At half-past six he would be off to his supper and the Christmas eve merrymaking.

Six o’clock came. The horses were munching contentedly at their fodder, now and then setting down a heavy hoof as if in greeting to one another, from stall to stall. Outside the engine-house the street-lamps showed dimly through aureoles of driving flakes.

Tap-tap-tap!

The old on-rush of horses and men, ready for duty as ever. Horses are in their place, with harness hooked—men on the alert to clamber upon the wagon—the cat in her favorite post of safety—“All ready, boys!”—but the gong has been quietly telling off the number of the box, and it is in a downtown district. Forty-six is not wanted—yet!

The box is in a bad locality, and the whole company wait for the second alarm they dread. Mike looks out at the blur of the storm and shrugs his burly shoulders at the thought of a two-mile plunge through the drifts, with a tough fight at the end of it. The horses stamp and paw the planks impatiently. “Supper or fire!” they say plainly, tossing their deep-maned heads and nosing one another’s bridles “we are ready for either!” Tom draws a long breath, and thinks of the cheery sitting-room, with its red curtains and evergreen trimmings.

Tap-tap-tap! An instant’s pause, to be sure it was not a fresh alarm from another box then : “Let her go, boys!”

The doors swing open and the horses, rearing almost upright in their great forward lunge, draw the glistening machine, already spouting smoke and sparks, out into the night. Close behind, with a clatter of hoofs and rattle of wheels, follows the hose-wagon with its little company of helmeted men crouching together as the northeast blast flings its white drift in their faces. And this is Tom’s Christmas Eve!

When half-past six came, and with it no signs of Tom, Bessie’s face began to lengthen. Mr. Rowe and Fred arrived five minutes later, and the family were obliged to sit down at the table leaving one chair vacant. When seven passed, and the absentee still failed to put in an appearance, it became plain that the long anticipated Christinas festivities must proceed without him. It was evident that Tom must have been called out, and Mrs. Sherwin stood at the window, gazing long and anxiously at the wild dance of the storm and listening to its uproar. Had it been a few years earlier, the clamor of bells from the neighboring steeples would have announced the fire, but at this time the public alarm system had been abolished as needless and productive of more harm than good.

“Well!” said Will, at length, “we may as well go ahead with our Christmas. Tom may drop in at any minute, and we can’t be sure of all getting together.” So Bessie and the rest brought out their little gifts, and there was much crackling of brown paper and a profusion of thanks. Fred did his best to enliven the company with his drolleries, and his comrade was no less comforting with his quieter air of confidence and good-will. Still Bessie, and indeed all of them, felt the absence of broad-shouldered, good-natured, laughing Tom, and it was with a keen sense of disappointment that, an hour or two later, the girl climbed the stairs to her own small room and went to bed.

After tossing restlessly awhile, and listening to the roar of the storm, she fell asleep and had a strange dream. She thought she was at a menagerie (as she had been in reality a few weeks before), and was watching the lions, when they all sat up on their hind legs and offered their paws to her. She proceeded to shake hands gravely with each, when Tom, who had come into the house,—the house now seemed to be in the old kitchen at East Brookville,—remarked, anxiously, “It’s all very well to shake their paws, but if they should begin to roar —” At this moment they did begin to roar, with a queer, booming sound. This continued till Bessie awoke awoke to find a strange red light flickering on the walls of her room, and to hear the dull booming of the lions, louder than ever, outside. Another moment and she recognized the sound of a fire-engine, in full action. She sprang, trembling, to her window. The yard of the great piano factory was all aflame, and the fierce wind was sweeping a vast volume of fiery sparks directly over the roof above her head. Even as she looked, a brand fell upon the snowy window-sill and clung there, sputtering and blazing viciously.

CHAPTER VII.
THROUGH THE FLAMES.

THE down-town fire proved one of the most stubborn and disagreeable that our Tom had been called upon to fight. It was not what is reported in the papers as a “spectacular conflagration,” nor, fortunately, was it a “holocaust” it was just an ugly, persistent fire, working from a sub-basement upward between partitions and under floors, devouring as it went, heating iron girders till they warped and imperilled the lives of every man in the building, and stealthily advancing under cover in spite of the spirited attack of the firemen who were busy when the second detachment, including Forty-six, arrived on the scene.

It had been a hard struggle, for both horses and men, through the increasing storm. Clouds of steam rose from old Billy, Bess, and Daisy, as they halted at a street corner, near the burning building, after their noble two-mile gallop. While the driver blanketed them, and provided as far as possible for their comfort and safety, the firemen came dashing up on the hose-wagon, and soon were in the thick of the fight.

Tom and Mike were sent into the basement with the pipe, to attack the enemy in the very heart of his stronghold.

‘‘Sure the smother o’ snow on the way down was bad enough, but the smoke’s worse,” grumbled Mike, as they felt their way down the narrow staircase from the street level.

Tom smiled grimly, but did not open his mouth to reply, lest he should inhale the smoke, dense volumes of which met the two brave fellows in the face at every step.

“Where does it come from?” he gasped, at length, coughing violently.

They had entered the basement, and no sign of fire was to be seen. The smoke was hotter and thicker than before—that was all.

They dropped upon hands and knees and crawled.

“Ow!” howled the young Irishman. “It’s bakin’ I am, like a pratie in the oven! Will yez feel o’ the flure now!”

The floor, indeed, felt like a stove cover. Both the men knew then that the fire must be beneath them,—a red caldron of flame into which they might be plunged at any moment. Dragging the hose over the hot floor, they groped for a passage, not to the street, but to the actual presence of the fire. They were there to do a battle, not to retreat.

“Here’s a door,” coughed Mike, “an’ by the hate that’s comin’ through the crack I’m thinkin’ —”

Whoof! came a great puff of smoke, as the men pulled the heavy door open.’ They crouched low for air, then half slid, half crawled part way down the stairs, the second flight to the sub-basement. They could see the fire now. It was crackling and crunching its food of iron and wood merrily enough, in this lowermost hold of its fortress. The heat was almost unsupportable.

“Water!” roared Mike, over his shoulder.

“Play away, Forty-six!” called Tom, hoarsely.

The cry was repeated by their comrades along the line of hose for these two were not the only ones who were risking their lives in that terrible furnace.

A moment, that seemed hours, and the two men felt the welcome swell and coolness of the canvas hose. The pipe gave a jerk and a hissing, frothing jet bubbled out. Tom dipped one hand in it, and bathed his face and neck. The wetness and coolness were like a breath from heaven. Mike did the same, and now the feeble jet grew to a strong, powerful stream.

“That’s into him!” screamed Mike, in the excitement of the assault on their fierce enemy. “ Go it, old b’y! Go it, Forty-six! Give it to him!”

Slap-dash went the stream, here and there in the lurid basement, knocking empty cases end over end, ripping out thin board partitions, hissing and roaring into the flames along the ceiling and walls, hunting the red foe from one vantage-ground to another.

“We’ve got it under!” shouted Tom, gleefully, in Mike’s ear. “This’ll save the whole building. If we can stand it two minutes more there’ll be no more work to do down here, anyway! ”

Tom was right. The fire sputtered and steamed and sulked. It even puffed once, so suddenly that the firemen barely had time to drop on their faces, and save their lives.

Their hands had a scorching, as it was, and when they were relieved and ordered out, almost immediately afterward, they were glad enough to stagger up the bending stairways, and out into the snow.

“Forty-six men, make-up! Lively now!” came the command.

“What’s up?” the men asked each other. “The fire hasn’t got its finish yet.”

“An alarm from Box Eighty-eight,” called out somebody who heard the question.

That was it, then. Another fire, in their own quarter of the city! In an incredibly short time the two pieces of apparatus were lumbering through the snow once more, leaving half a dozen engines still playing upon the smoldering fire that had called them down-town.

Although the horses were the pets of the men, they were urged to their utmost speed. The streets were now so encumbered with drifts that the splendid creatures who drew the engine could barely maintain a lumbering trot, and more than once it looked as if the machine would be absolutely stalled in the snow. The wagon, following closely behind, had almost as hard a time. Again and again the men jumped off and cheered on the horses or actually pushed at one team or the other.

Meanwhile a dull glow in the south grew steadily brighter until that whole section of the sky was blood-red, like an autumn sunset. Spurred on by the sight, the driver and his comrades urged the horses more strenuously than ever. The sleet was driven straight in their faces by the fierce wind, but the noble animals never faltered, tossing their ice-clogged manes and forelocks as they ploughed, trotted, or fairly leaped through the drifts toward the new scene of action.

Nearer and nearer. “Bessie will see something of a fire, if she’s awake,” thought Tom. “It can’t be far from our house.” As yet it had not occurred to him to worry over any possible danger to his mother or little sister. The captain, riding on the foot-board of the engine, shouted something back to the driver of the wagon. In response, the tired horses of both pieces of apparatus were called upon for a final effort.

“What did he say?” asked Tom, indifferently, thrashing his shoulder with one hand while he clung to the bar with the other. The burns on his hands smarted a good deal. He was thinking, just then, more of them and of the bitter cold, than of the fire.

“Cap’n says it’s the Brewster Lumber Yard,” replied the nearest hoseman. “I knew that old pile of kindlin’ would go some night, just when we were played out!”

The blood seemed to freeze in Tom’s veins, and his heart almost stopped beating. The lumber yard! As the wind blew, it would drive the flames directly toward the house where his mother and sister lay sleeping, with no barrier but the old office building.

It seemed an age before the wagon turned the corner that brought the fire fairly in view. The engine that had been previously summoned from an outlying district to cover Forty-six’s locality was hard at work, pumping away, shaking and belching out smoke and sparks as if it would burst. Two other machines were also playing on the fire, which seemed to have started in a big pile of boards and now had a firm hold over half the lumber in the yard. Even as Tom looked, while he was leaping from the wagon and helping to couple the hose to the hydrant, he saw the flames roll out from the upper windows of the building between the yard and the little house which held all he loved best in the world, and which was dark and silent.

The only salvation of that house was to keep the fire under in the old shop, and there the fight was made. Tom gasped out to his captain, “My folks are in that house!” “All right—give them a call,” responded the captain, hurriedly, “but I think we can save it. Get back here quick! ” And he was gone, plunging into the forefront of the battle.

An instant later Tom was ringing the bell of his front door with one hand and battering fiercely at it with the other. He forgot the pain of his burns. Mother and sister and Will must be saved. He shouted with all his might, “Will! Will! Bessie!”

At length the door opened, and Morton Rowe appeared, breathless but calm. Fortunately, he had found little to do in his department, after all, and had returned early.

“All right, Sherwin,” he said. “I’ve roused the house and they’ll all be dressed in a minute. Is it time for us to leave?”

“Not yet,” gasped Tom, “but be ready to go at any instant. I may not be able to reach you. Will you —?”

“I’ll look out for them,” interrupted Rowe, in a quieter tone. “You’re needed at the hose, old fellow. Don’t worry. If we have to go, you’ll find us at one of the houses in the next block. Some one will take us in.”

Tom squeezed the other’s hand hard, and pulling his helmet more firmly over his eyes, dashed off to the post of duty.

Forty-six had made her connection and was carrying her line directly into the blazing building, having smashed in the door of the real estate office and carried out the old agent by main strength, he kicking and resisting at every step. Tom plunged into the office to help his comrades, and from the second landing they had a fair chance to hit the fire which was blazing fiercely in the upper story.

“Play away, Forty-six/” shouted Tom from the window. He was so hoarse from the long strain of the night that he could hardly articulate the words.

A noble stream was soon playing, but did not seem effective.

“Phwat’s the matter?” grumbled Mike, bracing himself to hold the pipe as the foaming jet shot upward, to come cascading back over the stairs and fall in showers over the men. “Sure we’re not reachin’ him at all, at all!”

“Can we run her up to the next landing?” said Tom. “The fire’s mostly in that back room.”

“Ah, ye’re right, me b’y,” shouted Mike, above the turmoil of the fire, the stream, and the storm. “It’s mesilf’s thinkin’ there’s a door shut betune us an’ the fire, so we’re jist playin’ on the wall.”

“I’ll open it,” exclaimed Tom, forgetting alike his fatigue and his burns. He sprang up the stairs, as if he were battling against a human foe. The fire must be routed. Fiery brands were falling all about him, the entry was filled with suffocating volumes of smoke, he was half drowned by the back flow of the stream that Mike, who had tried in vain to stop him, played against the wall and stairway above his head so as to keep him drenched.

“Hurrah!” shouted the intrepid young fireman, “I’ve found it! Turn your stream over here, Mike!”

There was a broad, lurid glow through the smoke above, as the hoseman on the landing obeyed the order. Tom had thrown open a door disclosing the main body of the flames. They leaped at him savagely as he retreated, shouting to his comrade. At that very moment, when victory seemed sure, the splashing of the stream suddenly ceased.

“Play away! Play away! Water!” screamed Tom, recoiling from the door and feeling for the stairway. Then the air seemed all red and.he felt as if he were hurled into the heart of a fiery furnace the next instant he reeled and fell, and the world went out.

When Mr. Thomas Sherwin came to himself, his first impressions of life in general, and his own condition in particular, were unpleasant. He was lying on his back in a little iron bed which was one of a row of similar beds as much alike as peas in a pod. Without the least idea where he was, Tom gazed languidly at the scrupulously white counterpane, the iron bars of the bed (also white), and, in process of time, at his neighbors. It was just at this point of his dreamy explorations that the unpleasantness came in. To look at the occupant of the next bed, he turned slightly. Instantly he felt like a mutton-chop on a gridiron, broiling over a particularly hot fire. Streaks of pain ran across and up and down his head, body and limbs, until the young fireman felt that it was incumbent upon him to express his dislike of existing conditions. In other words, he groaned. The first groan producing no perceptible result, he tried it again,—a long querulous moan at the same time he felt strongly inclined to cry.

Just then a gentle voice dropped down to him from somewhere overhead—not so very far either, for Miss Edith Whitney was not tall, for a young woman of twenty—and a cool soft hand was laid upon his throbbing forehead.

“Is it very painful?” the voice said. “I’ll renew the bandages as soon as the doctor has seen you. Try a swallow of this,” and a glass of something cold and nice was held to his lips.

“Come round here where I can see you, please.” Tom’s voice sounded funny to himself. It was cracked and worn, like an old man’s.

Miss Edith stepped to his side, looking down at him with a smile, partly pitiful, partly amused, and wholly pleasant.

“It won’t hurt long,” she said, in her cool, sweet tones. “You’re not badly burned and the pain will leave you in a day or two.”

“Where am I? What’s the matter with me?” Tom forgot and tried to move again—and winced, the tears coming into his eyes. He felt like a baby.

“You mustn’t talk now. You were burned in the B- Street fire last night. Take this.”

Tom took “this” meekly (it was rather a bitter draught) and shut his eyes. When he opened them again the nurse had been transformed into his mother, who was sitting beside his bed.

“Mother!” This time Tom did cry a little.

Then the story came out, for the doctor had pronounced Tom’s condition highly favorable and his confinement in the hospital would be brief.

It seemed that something had happened to the hose—it had burst unexpectedly—and Tom’s life had been in imminent peril when he lost his senses and fell to the floor. While he and Mike had been locating the fire, however, a ladder had been planted against the story above, and a fireman from another company, leaping in at the window and groping to the head of the stairway, had stumbled over what he had at first thought was a lifeless body. He bore it tenderly to the window and another man carried poor Tom’s unconscious (but far from lifeless) form down to the ground. Here he was recognized, and while one comrade took him to the hospital another hurried to his home to inform his family of his condition.

The fresh attack on the fire, already half subdued by Tom and Mike, now fairly drowned it out. The blaze was driven back to the lumber yard and confined there until there, too, the last glowing heap succumbed to the deluge of water poured upon it in a dozen streams.

The Sherwins had gathered at their doorway, prepared to fly at any moment, but in due time a blackened, icicle-bearded, hel-meted head appeared at the door and told them the danger was over —they could return to their beds (that is, all of them except Mrs. Sherwin, who was already on her way to the hospital) in safety.

The fire, brief as it was, had not been without its fatality. One man probably was lost not a fireman, but a stranger who had unaccountably entered the burning building during the excitement of the storm-swept fire, and was not seen again. They were searching for him now.

A week later Tom was in his own home, so nearly recovered that he expected to rejoin his company within a few days. He asked Will to step in at the engine-house, and invite one of the men over to dinner, that he might learn the details of the bursting hose which so nearly cost him his life. It was no other than Mike Riordan who “responded” to the “call,” and glad enough was Tom to see him.

“Whin the strame petered out an’ we was hollerin’ fer Water,” explained Mike, after the preliminary greetings were over, “a cirkis was goin’ on outside, I can tell yez. One o’ Thirty-two’s men saw a fellow in the crowd stoop an stab the hose—saw him wid his own eyes. Well, he first gives a yell an’ lights out fer the fellow. The man dropped his knife and ran headfirst, straight into the buildin’. They shouted to him to look out, fer, mad as they was, they didn’t want him roasted but he kep’ on, an’ that’s the last they see of him —”

“He was burned up, then?” said Tom, shocked at the terrible punishment which had overtaken his unknown enemy.

“Day before yisterday the police found him, dyin’ in an ould shed down by Atlantic Avenoo. He had crep’ out by a back door, but was so injured that he couldn’t live. He made a clane breast of it.”

“Well?”

“His name was Black —”

“Rawson Black?” interrupted Tom, eagerly.

“Ay, I’d forgotten that quare first name. He was empl’yed by a man he called Pickens to do what he could to cripple the work at the fire. Pickens had bought an’ insured the house, an’ it’s thought he started the fire in the lumber yard, to get the insurance on the house. Anyway, they’ve arristed him down in Pawtucket, an’ he’ll have to stan’ trial next month.”

“Twas a crazy scheme,” mused Tom. “Poor Black! He was a bad fellow, but I’m sorry for him.”

“He died last night,” added Mike.

The very next day Tom, feeling very shaky still, managed to get out and walk over to the hospital to call on Nurse Edith and thank her (although he had expressed his gratitude warmly enough before) for her care of him.

With that interview and Tom’s frequent calls thereafter we have nothing to do nor with Bessie’s increasing good-will toward Morton Rowe. Will is at Harvard and expects to graduate next year. The Sherwins have moved to another and pleasanter house, where Mrs. Sherwin and her daughter still consider Morton a part of the household, although Fred Larkin has not returned since he was assigned to service off the Cuban coast during the war with Spain.

If you wish to see Tom, just inquire for him at the house of Engine Forty-six, where he is on duty still, with an honorable record to date and a prospect of a lieutenancy, should a vacancy occur.

THE END.