CHAPTER XII
The Fire
JEAN, Bettie, Marjory and Mabel ran with the rest to see what washappening, for their homes were not far from the schoolhouse. Indeed,owing to its ample setting, the building was plainly visible fromall directions; and from a distance, it always loomed larger thananything else in the town. To all the citizens it was a most unusualand alarming sight to see thick, black smoke curling about the eavesand rising in a threatening column above the familiar building. Such athing had never happened before.
Marjory was the first of the quartette to discover what was going on.She had opened her bedroom window the better to count the strokes ofthe fire-bell when, to her astonishment, she saw the fire itself or atleast the smoke thereof. Her first thought was of her three friends;for of course no Cottager could view such a spectacle as this promisedto be without the companionship of the other three.
So Marjory flew around the block--like a little excited hen, Dr. Tuckersaid--and collected the girls. They ran in a body to join the swellingcrowd that surrounded the smoking building.
"Keep back out of danger," called Aunty Jane, who was watching the firefrom her upstairs window.
"We will," shrieked Marjory, who, with the other three, was rushing by.
"Don't get mixed up with the hose," warned Dr. Tucker, who was carryingyoung Peter to view the fire.
"We won't," promised Bettie. "We'll stand on the very safest corner."
"This is it," declared Jean, stopping short on the sidewalk. "We cansee right over the heads of the folks that are close to the building."
"Should you think," panted Mabel, hopefully, "that there'd be schoolMonday?"
"Looks doubtful," said Marjory.
"Not upstairs, anyway," returned Jean. "Everything must be smokedperfectly black. And it's getting worse every minute instead of better."
"Goodness!" cried Mabel, suddenly turning pale at a new and alarmingthought. "I do hope it won't burn _my_ room. The money for MissBonner's birthday present is in my desk. It's--it's a horrible lot ofmoney to lose. I ought never to have left it there. Dear me! Do youthink----"
"Phew!" cried Jean, paying no heed to Mabel. "Look at that!"
"That" was a terrifying flash of red that suddenly illumined six of thebig upper windows.
"The High School room," groaned Bettie. "It's--it's _flames_!"
"Hang it!" growled an indignant tax-payer. "Why doesn't somebody _do_something? That building cost fifty thousand dollars."
"Fire started from a defective flue on top floor," explained anotherbystander, "but that's no reason why the whole place should go. There'sno fire downstairs, but there _will_ be--What's that? No water? Brokenhydrant?"
Mabel listened attentively. The bystander continued:
"Then the whole building is doomed. It's had time enough to get atremendous start."
"Oh, look!" cried Jean. "It's bursting through into the next room--_my_room! Oh, how _dreadful_! All our plants, our books, our pictures--Oh,oh! I can't bear to look."
Firemen and volunteer helpers were, hurrying in and out the widesouth door. Men carried out towering piles of books and tossed themruthlessly to the ground. Miss Bonner's big pink geranium was added tothe heap. The Janitor appeared with the big hall clock, that wouldn'tgo at all on ordinary occasions but was now striking seven hundred andtwenty-seven--or something like that--all at one stretch. It seemed tobe crying out in alarm. The roar of flames could now be heard, likewise.
"Why!" exclaimed Jean, wheeling suddenly. "Where's Mabel? Wasn't sheright beside you a minute ago, Bettie? I certainly saw her there."
"She was--but she isn't now," returned Bettie, looking about anxiously."I thought she was behind me."
"Dear me!" murmured motherly Jean. "I hope she hasn't gone any closer.Suppose the scallops on that roof should begin to melt off."
"Oh, look!" cried Marjory. "There! In the doorway!"
All three looked just in time to see a short, not-very-slender girl inan unmistakable red cap dart in at the smoky doorway.
"Oh," groaned Jean, "it's Mabel!"
"Oh," moaned Marjory, "why did I ever tell her that there was a fire?"
"I'm afraid," hazarded Bettie, "that she's gone to Miss Bonner's roomto get that money."
Bettie was right. That was exactly what Mabel had done.
All along Mabel's way hands had stretched out to stop the flyingfigure. But the hands were always just a little too late. You see, theowners of the tardy hands did not realize quickly enough that rashlittle Mabel actually meant to enter a building whose top floor wasall in flames. She was fairly inside before the onlookers grasped thesituation.
"How perfectly foolish!" cried Marjory, stamping her foot in helplessrage. "Of course somebody'll get her out--there's two men going innow--but how perfectly silly for her to go in at all!"
Mabel, however, was not feeling at all foolish. No, indeed. The littlegirl, to her own way of thinking, was doing a worthy, even a heroic,deed. She was rescuing the precious two dollars and forty-sevencents that her class had so laboriously raised to buy Miss Bonnera birthday gift. She would have liked to accomplish it in a littleless spectacular manner, but, no other way being available, she hadmade the best of circumstances and was ignoring the crowd. She hoped,indeed, that no one had noticed her; with so much else to look at itseemed as if one small girl might easily remain unobserved. To be sureshe was risking her life, the life of the only little girl that herparents possessed; but that seemed a small affair beside two dollarsand forty-seven cents. The roof might fall, the cornice might drop, thehuge chimney might collapse, the suffocating smoke or scorching flamesmight suddenly pour into that still unburned lower room. Let them!Heroes never stopped for such trifles with such a sum at stake.
By this time, Jean, Marjory and Bettie were white and absolutelyspeechless with fear. Four firemen were sitting on Dr. Bennett to keephim from rushing in after the little girl he had promptly recognized ashis own, and five women were supporting and encouraging Mrs. Bennett,who had grown too weak to stand although she still had her wits abouther.
"Fifty dollars reward," Mr. Black was shouting, "to the man that getsthat child!"
He would have gone after her himself, but Mrs. Crane had him firmly bythe coat-tails and both Dr. and Mrs. Tucker were clinging to his arms.
"Be aisy, be aisy," Mrs. Malony, the egg-woman was murmuring to theworld in general. "Miss Mabel's the kind thot's always escapin' jist bethe skin av her teeth. Rest aisy. Thim fire-laddies'll be havin' herout av thot dure in another jiffy."
But, although the crowd rested as "aisy" as it could, the moments wentby and no Mabel appeared.
With every instant the fire grew worse. By this time, the smoke andangry sheets of flame had burst through the roof and were streaming,with a mighty, threatening roar, straight up into the blackened sky--asplendid sight that was visible for a long distance. There was no waterto check the mighty fire, for, a very few moments after the hose hadbeen attached, the hydrant had burst and the water that should havebeen busy quenching the fire was quietly drenching the feet of many anunheeding bystander.
And presently the thing that everybody expected happened. With alingering, horrible crash a large part of the upper floor dropped tothe main hall below. Smoke poured from the lower doors and windows.In another moment leaping hungry flames were visible in every roomexcept the basement. The entire superstructure seemed now just like agigantic, topless furnace; and of course it was no longer possible foreven the firemen to venture inside.
But _where_ was Mabel?