“It’s the molasses, I dropped a little on the stove; but I’ll go out and see that all is right after you are in bed, and then we shall both feel better.”
Dolly went without her lamp, and as she passed the hall window she caught sight of a dull red glow, down against the dark horizon. In another instant she stood outside, her rosy color all blanched at sight of the fire sweeping down the prairie on those swift, terrible wings of the west wind. For an instant she was dizzy and confused with terror at the thought of her utter helplessness, then, as if a voice had repeated it to her, she recalled the verse she had read that morning, “What time I am afraid, I will trust in Thee,” and, with a silent prayer for help, she went back to her mother.
“The prairie is on fire,” she said, trying to speak quietly.
Her mother sprang from the bed, and sank down, almost fainting, from pain.
“O Dolly!” she gasped, “we shall die here all alone.”
“I’ll make a good fight, first,” said Dolly, bravely. “I must go and do what I can, and you must wait here and pray. Only perhaps you had better get your clothes on again, in case of the worst.”
Dolly threw some heavy shawls upon the bed, placed her mother’s clothes within reach, hugged her once, and rushed away. In two minutes more she had put on Joel’s boots, tied up her curly head in an old comforter, and buttoned herself into her father’s coat. She was ready to fight fire, and she knew just how to do it. But first the colts must be taken from the low thatched stable that would be sure to blaze at the first spark. Already they were growing restless with the strong smell of smoke, and that strange intuition of danger which horses seem to possess. Dolly had some difficulty in leading them out, and then she hardly knew what to do with them, for she knew well enough they would go scouring off when the fire came near. She was a quick-witted little woman, however, and she soon had the colts in the back kitchen, tied fast to the old carpet loom. Then she filled the tubs and pails with water, and set them along the line of the buildings, cut some heavy branches of hemlock, and brought out the horse-blankets and dipped them in water.
The house, behind its clump of evergreens, might possibly escape, but there seemed little chance for the low barn, the granary, and the immense stacks of hay, yet in them lay their hopes for a year, and Dolly determined not to give them up without a desperate struggle. She scarcely dared look at the fire, but she saw once how a brighter light leaped up as the flames caught a barn or a stack of hay in the distance. As rapidly as possible she broadened the circle about the line of buildings, lighting the thick grass with one hand, and dashing out the flame with the other, when it threatened to go beyond her control. She felt almost guilty as she saw the blaze she had kindled go sweeping away towards the east, carrying the same terror to others which was rapidly coming down upon her, but it was her only chance of escape, and there was not another house between them and the river. She worked on in desperation as the air grew thick with smoke, and at last she could hear the roar and crackle when the flames swept the great corn-field, fairly leaping along the rows of dry stalks. It was almost upon her, and she ran back within her burned circle, and waited for doom.
Her hands were blistered, her eye-lashes were burned off, but she did not know it. She only watched, with every nerve tense and throbbing, to see if the fire would leap the line. It died down a little in spots, crept sullenly along the edge, as if loth to go by, flamed up here and there at a bunch of tall weeds, then, with a sudden puff, the wind lodged a whirling handful of cinders at the foot of the great straw stack!
Dolly sprang at it like a tiger, tearing away the burning straw, and striking right and left with the wet blanket. Then a little blaze crept under the fence, and she beat the life out of it in a breath. Another whirl of cinders upon the roof of the stable, but they fell black and harmless. Then another blaze running along the edge of the shed, but the water was ready for it; and Dolly, with eyes everywhere, ran, and beat, and trampled, until at last the fire veered away to the south, and left the little homestead safe in the midst of a blackened waste.