“Bertha, it’s the old mill that is afire. Will Somers has left the key of the store here and gone to the fire. I can forgive him this morning, though I did think his duties as a fireman began to interfere with his duties as an apothecary. Let me see! I’m all ready, I believe—guess I must go up to the fire. Tell your aunt I have gone to the fire and I’ll be back—when I arrive.”
Off went the doctor. Bertha delivered the message to her aunt and went down stairs. Then she looked out of the window and watched the people on their way to the fire.
“Guess I’ll go to the fire, too,” said Bertha, “if aunt is willing.”
“Och,” said Biddy, as she watched the departing Bertha, “we’ll all be fur goin’ up to see Sophia. The saints defind us!”
The fire had started in the waste room of the old mill. Somebody had once insisted on isolating this quarter as much as possible, and brick partitions had been put up that happily interfered with the spread of the fire and allowed all the operatives a chance to escape. The fire finally reached an elevator. It then darted with startling rapidity to the top of the building, shooting up like an arrow sent by a destructive hand below. The flames were now spreading every-where in the highest story. People gathered from the town, and the engines soon were working.
“Get every body out of the building!” said a commanding voice, owned by a man who had just arrived.
“Of course! That’s what we have just been doing,” said a second.
The cry now arose, “Two boys in the mill!”
Some one said that the boys had made their escape with the other operatives, but had gone back into one of the lower stories after their overcoats.
“Boys in the mill!” rang out the fearful cry.