Suddenly the mayor threw up his hand in command, and almost instantly--as though he had himself switched off the light--all the street lamps in the business section of Centerport went out The arc light over the spot where Laura stood blinked, glowed for a moment, and then subsided. Mrs. Sweet cried out in alarm.
"This is all right," Laura called to her. "Now watch."
The mayor, in the half-darkness, stepped down from the platform and threw into the heart of the big bonfire the combustibles that set it off. The flames leaped up, spreading rapidly. The crowd cheered as eight boys, dressed in the knee-length dominos they had worn on the night of the ice carnival, dashed into the ring with resinous torches. They thrust the torches into the flames and the instant the torches were alight, they wheeled and dashed away through the lanes the police had kept open.
The red flames dancing before the Red Cross booth, and the sparking, flaming torches which the boys swung above their heads as they ran through the crowd to the various corners where the red pots hung, made an inspiring picture in the unwonted gloom of the streets.
"See how the Red Cross spreads!" cried Laura. "There's Nellie's fire going."
They could see the spark of new fire under the pot a block away. A short figure with flaming torch was approaching Laura's corner at high speed.
"Here comes Short and Long, I do believe," drawled Prettyman Sweet.
"My pot will soon be boiling," laughed Laura. "What are you going to throw in, Purt? And you, Mrs. Sweet? Give all you can--and as often as you can."
"Oh, I'll start you off, Laura," declared Purt, pulling out a handful of coins that rang the next moment in the bottom of the iron pot.
"Here's my purse, Prettyman!" called his mother, leaning from the car. "You put in my offering."