THE FIRST RUN
"How are we going to get it home?" asked Cole, as he and Bert, with the Jamesville fire chief, went out to look at the hand engine. It was in a shed, back of the place where the new chemical machine was housed.
"Can't you borrow a horse and drive it over?" asked the chief.
"No; let's get the fellows over here and pull it back to Lakeville," proposed Bert. "That'll be fun. We'll wake up our old town by parading through it."
"That's the idea," agreed the chief. "Your citizens need stirring up, anyhow. That was quite a fire you had over there the other night. If you'd had a chemical engine like ours that blaze could have been put out."
"That's what it could," replied Cole.
"I had a visit from one of your men the other day," went on the chief.
"Who?"
"Mr. Sagger. He wanted to know, in case they had a bad fire in
Lakeville, if we'd lend 'em our engine."
"What did you tell him?" asked Bert.