Then peering frantically here and there, hopefully remembering now how fond his darling had been of that neglected spot, “our only bit of outdoors” here in this great city, Ephraim came at last upon a point whence gleamed something white and soft. But the white gleam was a motionless one, and tottering like a man in a palsy the old sharpshooter raised his shaking hand and pointed toward that distant corner, then covered his eyes with his trembling arm.
Reverently, those grimed firemen lifted the scorched bush from what lay beneath. By the irony of fate it was a “laylock,” and had once borne blossoms such as Sophy had that morning cherished. It was she they found first. She was lying with outspread arms, prone on the larger, stronger body of Jessica beneath, as if stretching her own limbs to the utmost, that they might wholly cover the other girl she adored. She had evidently forced the “Little Captain” downward, and, with the instinct of love, broken many branches from everywhere about and heaped them first on the other child. Then she had thrown herself upon these branches and so awaited—What?
A thought of what those children, that little heroine, had suffered in their time of terror blanched strong faces even now; but it was a glad cry that went up:
“This one isn’t dead! She’s only half-suffocated with the smoke!”
“Nor this! Nor this! This yellow-headed one is opening her eyes! Thank God! They are alive!”
Five minutes later the clang of a hospital ambulance came into that alley, whence the engine had swiftly been removed, and upon a stretcher therein were most tenderly placed the two small forms of the rescued children, then—Clang! and away again.
But there stood on the step in the rear a bareheaded, wild old man who would not be gainsaid, whose eyes were blind with tears, and whose constant moan was:
“Oh! my ‘Little Captain!’ ‘Little Captain!’”
Meanwhile, in a rear room of a plebeian drug store a haughty, astonished old lady sat and ignominiously waited; enduring as best she could the peeps and stares of the “common” people.