With a choking cry, Huldah turned and stumbled across the room to the stairway. Out at the barn door Cyrus, too, saw the flare of light at the window, and he, too, turned with a choking cry.
They met at the foot of the stairway.
“Huldah!”
“Cyrus!”
It was as if one voice had spoken, so exactly were the words simultaneous. Then Cyrus cried:
“You ain’t hurt?”
“No, no! Quick--the things--we must get them out!”
Obediently Cyrus turned and began to work; and the first thing that his arms tenderly bore to safety was an oblong brown-paper parcel.
From all directions then came the neighbors running. The farming settlement was miles from a town or a fire-engine. The house was small, and stood quite by itself; and there was little, after all, that could be done, except to save the household goods and gods. This was soon accomplished, and there was nothing to do but to watch the old house burn.
Cyrus and Huldah sat hand in hand on an old stone wall, quite apart from their sympathetic neighbors, and--talked. And about them was a curious air of elation, a buoyancy as if long-pent forces had suddenly found a joyous escape.