III
HERE WE VISIT AN ENGINE-HOUSE AT NIGHT AND CHAT WITH THE DRIVER
THERE is something strange and solemn about an engine-house at night, like the stillness of a church or the hush of a drowsing menagerie. You are filled with a sense of impending danger, which is symbolized everywhere: in the boots ranged at bunk-sides of sighing sleepers, in the brass columns, smooth as glass, that reach up through manholes in the floor, and at which the fire crew leap, half drunk with fatigue; in the engine, purring at the double doors (steam always at 25 in the boiler), with tongues and harness lifted for the spring; in the big gong which watches under the clock (and the clock watches, too), a tireless yellow eye, that seems to be ever saying, "Shall I strike? Shall I strike?" And the clock ticks back, "Wait, wait," or "Now, now." That is what you feel chiefly in an engine-house at night—the intense, quiet watchfulness. Even the horses seem to be watching with the corner of an eye as they munch their feed.
A RESCUE FROM A FIFTH STORY.
I counsel a man, perhaps a woman, weary of the old evening things, the stupid show, the trivial talk, the laughter without mirth, the suppers without nourishment, to try an hour or two at an engine-house, making friends with the fireman on guard (it may be the driver of a chief, as happened to me), and see if he doesn't walk back home with a gladder heart and a better opinion of his fellows. I fancy some of our reformers, even, might visit an engine-house with profit, and learn to dwell occasionally on the good that is in our cities and learn something about fighting without bluster and without ever letting up.
It was a tall, loose-jointed fellow I met at the Elm Street station, a typical down-easter, who had wandered over the world and finally settled down as driver of the nervous little wagon that carries Chief Ahearn, a daring man and famous, in his dashes from fire to fire over the city. In these days of idol-breaking it is good to see such hero worship as one finds here for all men who deserve it, whether in humble station or near the top, like this wiry little chief, asleep now up-stairs against the night's emergencies. Ask any fireman in New York to tell you about Ahearn, and you'll find there is one business where jealousy doesn't rule. Ahearn? What do they think of Ahearn? Why, he's a wonder, sir; he's the dandiest man. Say, did ye ever hear how he crawled under that blazing naphtha tank and got a man out who was in there unconscious? They gave him the Bennett medal for that. And d' ye know about the rescue he made up in Williamsbridge, when that barrel of kerosene exploded? Oh, but the prettiest thing Ahearn ever did was— Then each man will tell you a different thing.
The driver's favorite story was of the night when Ahearn ran back into a burning tenement on Delancey Street, "where nobody had any business to go, sir, the fire was that fierce." It was fine to see his face light up as he told what his chief did on this occasion, and the whole quiet engine-house seemed to throb with pride.
"You see," he went on, "there was a half-crazy mother screaming around that her baby was in the building. As a matter of fact, the baby was all right—some neighbors had it—but the mother didn't know that, and the chief didn't know it, either. He was chief of the 4th Battalion then; now he's deputy chief—been promoted, y' know. Chief or not didn't cut any ice with him, and he just wrapped a coat around his head and went in. He got to the room all right where the woman said her baby was, and it was like a furnace; so he did the only thing a man can do—got down low on his hands and knees and worked along toward the bed, with his mouth against the floor, sucking in air. He went through fire, sir, that nearly burned his head off—it did burn off the rims of his ears—but he got to that bed somehow, and then he found he'd done it all for nothing. There wasn't any baby there to save.