"I—I guess we'll have to give it up," said John Boll. "It would be lots of fun for us boys to have a department, but I'm afraid we can't."
"It wouldn't be altogether fun," said Bert, "as we'd have to work hard to put out fires. But I don't know that we'll have to give up the plan. I wanted to talk to you fellows, and see how you felt about it. Perhaps we can raise the money."
"How?" asked Vincent.
"Well, we could give some sort of an entertainment, get up a ball game, and charge admission, and we boys can make some cash doing odd jobs, and put that in the treasury."
"I believe the folks in this town are too mean to come to a show or a ball game, even if it was to help buy an engine, and a second-hand one at that," declared John.
"We'll give 'em the chance," replied Bert. "But, fellows, what do you think of the plan?"
"What plan is it?" asked a new voice, and the boys looked up to see
Tom Donnell.
"We're going to have a fire department," declared Cole, and he proceeded to tell what they were discussing.
Tom was enthusiastic over it, as, indeed, were all the boys. Several other lads came along, until there was quite a crowd of them, and Bert was kept busy explaining his scheme.
From his butcher shop near by, Moses Sagger looked at the knot of earnestly talking lads. To him that meant but one thing.