As Constance and Eleanor rushed into the house, the multitude rushed across the grounds and followed them hotfoot, while one, more level-headed than his fellows, hastened to the nearest fire-box to turn in an alarm.
Meanwhile Mammy had also smelt the smoke, and as the girls ran through the front hall she came through the back one crying:
“Fo’ de Lawd’s sake wha’ done happen? De house gwine burn down on top our haids?”
“Quick, Mammy. It’s Eleanor’s room,” cried Constance as she flew up the stairs.
Mammy needed no urging. In one second she had grasped the situation and was up in Mrs. Carruth’s room dragging forth such articles and treasures as she knew to be most valued and piling them into a blanket. There was little time to waste for the flames had made considerable headway when discovered and were roaring wildly through the upper floor when the fire apparatus arrived. Mrs. Carruth was out driving with a friend and Jean was off with her beloved Amy Fletcher.
Only those who have witnessed such a scene can form any adequate idea of the confusion which followed that outburst of smoke from Eleanor’s windows. Men ran hither and thither carrying from the burning house whatever articles they could lay their hands upon, to drop them from the windows to those waiting below to catch them. Firemen darted in and out, apparently impervious to either flames or smoke, directing their hose where the streams would prove most effectual and sending gallons of water upon the darting flames. The fact that the fire had started in the third-story saved many articles from destruction by the flames, although the deluge of water which flooded the house and poured down the stairways like miniature Niagaras speedily ruined what the flames spared.
Eleanor rushed toward her room but was quickly driven back by a burst of flames and smoke that nearly suffocated her, while Constance flew to Jean’s and her own room, meanwhile calling directions to Mammy. Five minutes, however, from the time they entered the house they were forced to beat a retreat, encountering as they ran Miss Jerusha Pike, a neighbor who never missed any form of excitement or interesting occurrence in her neighborhood.
“What can I do? Have you saved your ma’s clothes? Did you get out that mirror that belonged to your great-grandmother?” she cried, as she laid a detaining hand upon Constance’s arm.
“I don’t know, Miss Pike. Come out quick. It isn’t safe to stay here another second. We must let the men save what they can. Come.”
“No! No! I must save your grandmother’s mirror. I know just where it hangs. You get out quick. I won’t be a second. Go!”