“Your work?” I asked the question of Phineas, and pleasantly enough.
The boy’s eyes filled. “Yes, sir.”
“Where’s Apollos?”
“In bed, burned arm, broken leg—Oh, dear, oh, dear!” With this childlike exclamation, the son of a hundred Stickneys broke down utterly.
Between sobs, Phineas made his foolish city boy’s confession. He had merely made a fire to roast some corn in the ear, and meaning to be extremely careful, had kindled his sticks close up against an old stone wall a few feet away from the studio with the angels. Yes, he had spoken about it to Apollos the day before, and Apollos had warned him. But, such is the stubbornness of the sons of the Revolution, he had felt perfectly sure it would be safe. His distress was so evident that I refrained, at that time, from pointing out what a consummate jackass he was.
“Before I knew it,” he went on, “the wind veered clean around, and the fire burst through the wall quicker’n chain lightning, and began climbing the dry grass on the bank up toward the studio. And all those last year’s leaves! You would never believe it!”
“Oh, yes, I would,” I retorted, a little bitterly. “I am still in my right mind.”
“Apollos was in the garage, tinkering on a bust he brought in there when you went away, and I was planning to surprise him with the roast corn. So I hollered to Apollos, and Apollos hollered to Henry, and Henry telephoned to the town-hall to ring the bell like blazes. And in ten minutes half the men in the village were here with brooms and shovels.”
“But who got out the angels? Or did they soar out, under their own steam?”