HOW WE FOUGHT THE FIRE.

'Twas a drowsy night on Tompkins Hill:
The very leaves of the trees lay still;
The world was slumbering, ocean deep;
And even the stars seemed half asleep,
And winked and blinked at the roofs below,
As yearning for morn, that they might go.
The streets as stolid and still did lie
As they would have done if streets could die;
The sidewalks stretched as quietly prone
As if a foot they had never known;
And not a cottage within the town,
But looked as if it would fain lie down.
Away in the west a stacken-cloud,
With white arms drooping and bare head bowed,
Was leaning against—with drowsy eye—
The dark blue velveting of the sky.
And that was the plight
Things were in that night,
Before we were roused the foe to fight—
The foe so greedy and grand and bright—
That plagued old Deacon Tompkins.

II.

The Deacon lay on his first wife's bed,
His second wife's pillow beneath his head,
His third wife's coverlet o'er him wide,
His fourth wife slumbering by his side.
The parson visioned his Sunday's text,
And what he should hurl at Satan next;
The doctor a drowsy half-vigil kept,
Still studying, as he partly slept,
How men might glutton, and tope, and fly
In the face of Death, and still not die;
The lawyer dreamed that his clients meant
To club together, and then present,
As proof that their faith had not grown dim,
A small bright silver hatchet to him;
The laborer such sound slumber knew,
He hadn't a dream the whole night through;
The ladies dreamed—but I can't say well
What 'tis they dream, for they never tell!
In short, such a general drowsy time
Had ne'er been known in that sleepy clime,
As on the night
Of clamor and fright,
We were roused the treacherous foe to fight—
The foe so greedy and grand and bright,
And carrying such an appetite—
That plagued old Deacon Tompkins.

III.

When all at once the old court-house bell
(Which had a voice like a maniac's yell)
Cried out, as if in its dim old sight
The judgment-day had come in the night.
"Bang whang whang bang clang dang bang whang,"
The poor old parcel of metal sang;
Whereat, from mansion, cottage, and shed,
Rose men and women as from the dead,
In different stages of attire,
And shouted, "The town is all afire!"
(Which came as near to being true
As some more leisurely stories do.)
They saw on the Deacon's house a glare,
And everybody hurried there;
And such a lot of visitors he
Had never before the luck to see.
The Deacon received these guests of night
In a costume very simple and white;
And after a drowsy, scared "Ahem!"
He asked them what he could do for them.
"Fire! fire!" they shouted; "your house's afire!"
And then, with energy sudden and dire,
They rushed through the mansion's solitudes,
And helped the Deacon to move his goods.
And that was the sight
We had that night,
When roused by the people who saw the light
Atop of the cottage, cozy and white,
Where lived old Deacon Tompkins.

HOW WE FOUGHT THE FIRE.

IV.

Ah me! the way that they rummaged round!
Ah me! the startling things they found!
No one with a fair idea of space
Would ever have thought that in one place
Were half the things that, with a shout,
These neighborly burglars hustled out.
Came articles that the Deacon's wives
Had all been gathering half their lives;
Came furniture such as one might see
Didn't grow in the trunk of every tree;
A tall clock, centuries old, 'twas said,
Leaped out of a window, heels o'er head;
A veteran chair, in which, when new,
George Washington sat for a minute or two;
A bedstead strong, as if in its lap
Old Time might take his terminal nap;
Dishes, that in meals long agone
The Deacon's fathers had eaten on;
Clothes, made of every cut and hue,
That couldn't remember when they were new;
A mirror, scathless many a day
('Twas promptly smashed in the regular way);
Old shoes enough, if properly thrown,
To bring good luck to all creatures known;
And children thirteen, more or less,
In varying plenitude of dress.
And that was the sight
We had that night,
When roused, the terrible foe to fight,
Which blazed aloft to a moderate height,
And turned the cheeks of the timid white,
Including Deacon Tompkins.

Lo! where the engines, reeking hot,
Dashed up to the interesting spot:
Came Number Two, "The City's Hope,"
Propelled by a line of men and rope;
And after them, on a spiteful run,
"The Ocean Billows," or Number One.
And soon the two, induced to "play"
By a hundred hands, were working away,
Until, to the Deacon's flustered sight,
As he danced about in his robe of white,
It seemed as if, by the hand of Fate,
House-cleaning day were some two years late,
And with complete though late success,
Had just arrived by the night express.
The "Ocean Billows" were at high tide,
And flung their spray upon every side;
The "City's Hope" were in perfect trim,
Preventing aught like an interim;
And a "Hook-and-Ladder Company" came,
With hooks and ropes and a long hard name,
And with an iconoclastic frown
Were about to pull the whole thing down,
When some one raised the assuring shout,
"It's only the chimney a-burnin' out!"
Whereat, with a sense of injured trust,
The crowd went home in complete disgust.
Scarce one of those who, with joyous shout,
Assisted the Deacon in moving out,
Refrained from the homeward-flowing din,
To help the Deacon at moving in.
And that was the plight
In which, that night,
They left the Deacon, clad in white,
Who felt he was hardly treated right,
And used some words, in the flickering light,
Not orthodox in their purport quite—
Poor, put-out Deacon Tompkins!

[From Arthur Selwyn's Note-book.]

Let me a moment indite
Scenes that I witnessed one night:

["YOU WILL TELL ME WHERE IS CONRAD?">[

"You will tell me where is Conrad?" said an old man, bent and gray,
While the flames were wildly dancing, and the walls were giving way.

"I haf heard some ones was buried—underneath the ruins fell;
He was in de topmost story—ach, mein Gott! I luf him well!

"I will tell you how you knew him: he had full and laughing eye,
And his face was smooth and smiling—and he was too young to die.

"Hair he had like clouds at sunset when anodher day is done,
And I luf him—how I luf him! and he is mein only son.

"Say, Policeman, tell me truly that this young man you did see,
And I all the money gif you, such as I could bring with me.

"Tell me that he anxious acted—that he hunted far and long,
Like as children would be calling for their fadher in a throng;

"Or he wounded was, pray tell me—in the hospital to lie?—
I will just now hasten to him, and I not will let him die!

"Tell me—oh, you must not told me—dead you haf my Conrad see?
Yet if so is I can stand that—I did long a soldier be.

"Only—Death, we do not fear him when we hear the bullets sing,
But to haf my boy killed this way is a rather different thing.

"Only—that his poor old mudher, she waits home all full of fear,
And I cannot there be going, till I take good news from here!

"Young he was when we did bring him from the Rhine land o'er the sea;
I did lif for her and Conrad—she did lif for him and me.

"Other ones we bring not with us: Gott he says, 'These more be mine;'
And we left them all a-sleeping 'mong the vineyards of the Rhine.

"He haf not a cross word gif us—he haf luf us every day,
And if he to-night comes home not, 'tis the first that he's away.

"Let me to that fire, Policeman! I care what for walls or brand?
Maybe he in there be living—reaching for his fadher's hand!

"Let me past, I say, Policeman! I haf work there to be done!
Let go me or I will strike you!—is it that you haf no son?"

Still the flames were like a furnace, and the walls were crashing loud,
And the old man, held in safety, fainted 'mid the trembling crowd.

And the mother watched and wondered, with her great eyes scarcely wet;
But, half dazed amid her sorrow, waits for Conrad even yet.

WATER.

[From Farmer Harrington's Calendar.]

April 25, 18—.

RAIN—rain—rain—for three good solid fluid weeks—
Till the air swims, and all creation leaks!
And street-cars furnish still less room to spare,
And hackmen several times have earned their fare.
The omnibuses lumber through the din,
And carry clay outside as well as in;
The elevated trains, with jerky care,
Haul half-way comfort through the dripping air;
The gutters gallop past the liquid scene,
As brisk as meadow brooks, though not so clean;
What trees the city keeps for comfort's sake,
Are shedding tears as if their hearts would break;
And water tries to get, by storming steady,
That fourth of all the world it hasn't already.

And men are not so sweet as men could wish,
In air that wouldn't offend a moderate fish;
Few places can be found, outside or in,
Where this dark-featured weather has not been;
For man has always striven, and in vain,
To roof his disposition from the rain.
I've strolled about, this morning, several miles,
'Mongst men who get their living by their smiles;
I've set my old umbrella up to drip
In places where I claimed relationship
(Or, rather, where my heart did; and that's more
Than blood connection is, sixteen times o'er);
I've journeyed up and down through half Broadway,
And did not see a first-class smile to-day.

And so, in spite of all that I can do,
These gold-bowed spectacles are growing blue;
And my old heart must bear along the road
A fanciful but rather heavy load;
A painful pressure from a hand unseen:
Most any one knows nearly what I mean.

I think I'll powder up this dark-skinned day,
By going, to-night, to hear the actors play!
They'll make me laugh, and tone me up a bit,
And get me out of this unnatural fit.

11 o'clock P.M.

Got back alive; and that's worth thinking on,
From where there's been such lots of killing done;
Mercy! it was a somewhat skittish sight—
So many people butchered in one night!
'Twas just a lot of people playing crime—
A sort of murder-picnic all the time.

We found the theatre with handbills spread,
Near where the notice in the paper said
(The weather had slacked up an hour or so,
And Wife thought she would condescend to go),
And after stumbling over several chaps,
Who thought they'd met us somewhere else, perhaps,
And cheerfully addressed us o'er and o'er,
As if they'd known us several years or more,
Persisting in affording us a chance
To buy our tickets at a slight advance
(The theatres employ these men, I've heard,
To greet their patrons with a friendly word,
And light their way in with kind word and smile,
And make a dollar out of them meanwhile);
We brushed past these remarkable "dead-beats,"
Some tickets bought, and scrambled to our seats.

After a piece of music by the band,
The curtain rose before a castle grand,
And soldiers talking, with a half-scared mien,
About a spook that one of them had seen.
When lo! this ghost appears, plump to their view,
And will not talk, although they beg him to.
(I whispered to my wife that I'd a freak
That a newspaper man could make him speak;
But suddenly my comments had to cease,
For Wife encouraged me to hold my peace.)

When lo! this ghost, who, thus far, might have come
Out of a sky-asylum for the dumb,
Speaks with a queer but rather human sound,
When once his son, the Prince, gets on the ground;
And taking him aside, ten feet almost,
Tells the poor boy that he's his father's ghost,
Whose own false brother softly to him crept,
And poured him full of poison while he slept.

Then the young man got mad, though to my mind
'Twas lunacy of quite a knowing kind;
And went to work with an apparent view
Of killing off 'most every one he knew.

I haven't the time his actions all to state;
I'll only say he managed it first-rate,
And some way killed all relatives he saw,
From uncle to prospective father-in-law;
And when he got through, those he hadn't snuffed out
Were hardly worth while bothering about.
(I mustn't forget to say that this poor elf
Became, at last, a good square corpse himself.)

I looked around, and, the whole building through,
Women were shedding tears as if 'twas true;
And Wife was 'most too much concerned to speak,
And even my old eyes had sprung a leak.
'Twas a moist time; and I remarked, "'Tis plain
We've come out of the rain into the rain."

I got so full of funeral, sitting there,
Then, when we once more sniffed the clean, live air,
It seemed a piece of good-luck all around,
To get away once more, alive and sound.

That's what they call a "tragedy;" where Death
Flies 'round till he himself gets out of breath;
And, with sword-slashes and cold poison filled,
All who amount to anything, get killed.
It's part of life; some time again I'll view it,
But take a good square rest before I do it!

[From Arthur Selwyn's Note-book.]

Here on this sea-beach I wander;
Why of the storms am I fonder
Than of the sunlight above them?
And the clouds: why do I love them—
Waves of the sky, onward sweeping,
Or to the ocean-waves leaping?
Why do I court this fierce day,
Dashing my face full of spray?
Why, when the waves strike the shore
With their strong, leonine roar,
Does my soul fiercely entreat them—
Rush out with rapture to meet them?
Why do I love to descry
War in the fields of the sky?
Why does the chain-lightning's glare,
Ploughing blue meadows of air,
Look to my vision alway
Sweet as a star in the day?

You who in fair summer weather
Seek this sea-city together
(Built for tumultuous rest,
With the famed ocean chief guest),
Not half the pleasure you've known
That I, here wand'ring alone,
On these wet sand-fields have found,
Hearing the ocean's own sound,
Viewing fierce waves from afar
Strive with the winter in war.
Storms that tumultuously roll
Far through my innermost soul—
Here you encounter, at last,
Harmonies wondrous and vast!

What did I find on the shore?
Must I rehearse it once more?