Ben’s large canoe lay upon the beach, in which was some straw that Ben had brought over from his father’s to fill beds. Charlie, unable longer to look on, when so much was at risk, put the child into the canoe among the straw, gave it some shells to attract its attention, and ran back to help.
The great wood-pile, within a few yards of the house, now took fire.
“It’s no use, Sally,” said Ben; “the fire is all around us, and all we have must go.”
Sally, uttering a loud scream, ran wildly to the shore. A piece of blazing moss, borne by the wind, had fallen into the canoe, and set fire to the straw, which was blazing up all around the baby. In a moment more it would have been burned to death; as it was, its clothes were scorched, and the little creature terribly frightened.
At this moment a rushing sound was heard, and a vessel with all sail set, and bearing the white foam before her bows with the rapidity of her motion, shot into the harbor, and was run high upon the soft sand of the beach, the tide being at half ebb.
In an instant eight men, leaving the sails to slat in the wind, leaped into the water, and with buckets which they filled as they ran, came to the rescue. One alone lingered to cut some limbs from a hemlock bush, a whole armful of which he brought with him, and while the rest were passing the water from the beach, and pouring on the blazing wood-pile, he was switching out the flames, as they ran towards the beach, with a dexterity that showed he was no novice in fire-fighting.
The wood-pile was composed mostly of logs eight feet in length: while the others poured water on the ends of the sticks, Ben, catching hold of them, dragged them from the pile to a safe distance from the house, and, after a long and desperate struggle, they arrested the progress of the flames.
Scarcely was this accomplished, when the roof was discovered to be on fire; the violence of the wind had blown off a blanket, and the cinders catching had kindled in the dry bark. Ben, taking Charlie, threw him up on the roof, when, the others passing him water, he soon extinguished the flames.
Ben had now opportunity to see who his deliverers were, and to thank them, which he did in no measured terms.
They were John Strout, Henry and Joe Griffin, Seth Warren, Robert Yelf, Sam Edwards, Sydney Chase, and Uncle Isaac. He it was, that, with a coolness that never forsook him, stopped to cut an armful of switches for himself and the rest.