Then they took off their wet dresses and put on dry ones, and Grace climbed up in a chair to hang Alice's dress on the clothes-bars over the stove.
"It will not dry very fast until we open the dampers and let the fire burn up," she said; so she opened both dampers wide, and then took Alice up to the play-room to see the new doll which her aunt had sent her for a birthday gift. The doll had a whole trunkful of dresses, coats, hats, and shoes, and the two little girls had such a good time trying them on that they forgot all about the kitchen stove.
Suddenly Grace cried, "I can smell smoke, Alice. Something is burning!"
"It must be my dress," exclaimed Alice, jumping up and running down the back stairs.
She opened the kitchen door just in time to see the dress burst into flames. "Oh, what shall we do?" she cried. "My dress is on fire! Put it out! Put it out! Quick! Quick!"
"I can't!" screamed Grace. "Oh, Mother! Mother! Come home! Come home!"
Just then a man, who was driving by with a load of wood, saw the flames through the window and came running in to see what was the matter. He snatched the burning dress from the clothes-bars, threw it into the sink, and pumped water over it to put out the fire.
Then he closed the dampers in the stove, which was now red hot, and opened the windows at the top to let out the smoke; while all the time the two little girls stood in the middle of the floor, sobbing and crying.
"That was a very careless thing to do," said the man, when at last they told him how the dress happened to catch fire. "You should never hang anything over the stove. Tell your mother to take down those clothes-bars this very afternoon, and put them on the other side of the kitchen; and remember never to go out of the room again when you have started up the fire. A red-hot stove will sometimes set wood-work on fire, even if there isn't a cotton dress near by to help it along."
"I don't believe I shall forget it very soon," said Grace, as she lifted the handful of wet black rags out of the sink.