Mrs. Osborne threw her arms around her. “Thank God, you and Anne and Ruth are safe.�
“Yes, yes! Thank God for that. But my home, my precious home!�
“Go with Miranda, Agnes; go to The Roost,� urged Red Mayo. “Don’t distress yourself staying here. We will put your things in the schoolhouse; that’s safe, I’m sure.�
But the poor lady stood and watched, with fascinated horror, the flames racing through the house and thrusting fierce, demonlike tongues out of the windows.
“Stand back! out of the way!� shouted Red Mayo and Will Blair. The roof had caught; there was a great burst of flame, burning shingles soared through the air. Fortunately, it was a windless night and the Village houses were far apart, in lawns and groves.
After that great upflare, the fire subsided. When the east wall toppled and crashed down, there was another fierce spurt of flame. Then the fire died down. And at last they all went sadly home.
In the gray morning, an old, bent, black negro man crept out of a shed on The Back Way and looked with a curious mixture of triumph and terror at the smoldering ruin, the blackened walls with the windows like ghastly loopholes. That was all that was left of Broad Acres, which had been for over a hundred years a home and a landmark.
“Of course you’ll stay right here with us,� said Mrs. Red Mayo Osborne to Mrs. Wilson, the next morning.
“Undoubtedly!� Mr. Osborne was surprised that his wife considered it necessary to say so.
“You and Ruth.� “Of course you will.� “Oh, yes!� and “Sure!� exclaimed Patsy, Sweet William, David, and Dick.