In a moment his astonished father beheld him perched on the burning gable.
“Ned! Go down,” exclaimed Mr. Miller.
Ned wasted no time in arguing.
“Tie a bucket or something on this,” he called, lowering his trot-line as he unwound it.
Mr. Miller grabbed a small tin pail which was just being passed out to him, and fastened it to the dangling cord. With the water splashing from it Ned hauled it up, and the crowd of spectators watched, breathless.
All he could do was to lean over as far as he dared and dash its contents up under the eaves; a groan from the watchers told him that he had done no good. Although attacked from above and below, the tiny blaze lived on.
The fire had spread from the Miller barn westward, and by means of the on-stretching sheds was eating its way, rod by rod. The Millers’ next door neighbors, on the west, were battling stoutly, with garden hose and buckets, and the structures across the alley had caught.
All He could do was to lean over and dash the Water under the Eaves.
These were low sheds, and not barns, so that the houses were not apt to catch. The Miller house was the only one that seemed doomed. Try as they might, neither Ned nor his father nor other eager helpers could put out that steady flame under the eaves; and now the kitchen eaves, also, were smoking and smouldering in a dozen places. The kitchen roof was getting so slippery that Mr. Miller could hardly move about on it.