The foremost of them tried to climb down the andirons. But these were too hot, and soon they went scurrying back again. They grew wilder and wilder, wandering about crazily as if they did not know what to do. Their home was surrounded by flame on every side. Some of them tried to jump down. But Rose shuddered to see the poor things fall into the fire or upon the hot hearth and shrivel up into sad little cinders. It was too dreadful!
“Oh, Mama and Papa, what shall we do?” she cried. “I cannot bear to see them. It is just like a house full of people being burned, with nobody to help. Kenneth, can’t we do something?”
“Ding-dong! Call out the fire-engine!” roared Kenneth, jumping up and galloping to the kitchen for a pail of water. Kenneth was always ready for a new game.
“Water will do no good. You cannot put out the fire without drowning them,” called Kenneth’s father. “I am afraid the poor ants are doomed, Rosie. It is like a crowded tenement house, isn’t it?” he said to Mama. “The poor little creatures crowd together like people in the upper-story windows, hoping for a ladder.”
“That is what they need—a fire-escape,” cried Rose. “Oh, I must make a fire-escape quickly!”
She ran to the wood-box and seized a long, flat piece of wood. This she took for her fire-escape, resting one end on the rug in front of the hearth, and the other on top of the log which had now caught fire and was blazing briskly. It made a nice little bridge from the burning wood above the hot hearthstone. Almost immediately an ant spied the fire-escape and started across it eagerly. Another followed him; then another and another, until a constant procession was filing down the bridge toward safety.
“Hurrah!” cried Rose, as the first ant reached the rug; but she stopped suddenly. “Look at him!” she cried. “He is going back!”
Sure enough, back he was going,—back to the burning log. And all the other ants were doing the same thing. One after another they returned up the fire-escape, stopping to wave their feelers and make signs to all the ants whom they met coming down. They must have told these last something to make them change their minds; for every single one turned about as soon as he was told. Presently it was plain what they meant. The ants were coming out in crowds, and each was carrying something white in its mouth.
“The ant babies! They are trying to save the ant babies!” cried Rose. And that is exactly what they were doing. Eagerly the children watched the crowds running down the fire-escape with their precious burdens. Faster and faster they came, and the hearthrug was black with them when Papa took it up gently and carried it out to shake it over the piazza railing. How glad the poor little ants must have been to feel the cool grass under their feet!
They were all saved at last, and it was high time, for the log was now one mass of flame.