“I am not going out; everybody that goes gets crazy,” says one.
“I’ve noticed,” says another, “that as soon as anybody goes out to look, he gets just so excited.—I won’t look.”
But by this time the angry fire has burned into their very neighborhood. The red demon glares into their windows. And now, fairly aroused, they get up and begin to look out.
“Well, there is a fire, and no mistake!” says one.
“Something ought to be done,” says another.
“Yes,” says a third; “if it wasn’t for being mixed up with such a crowd and rabble of folks, I’d go out.”
“Upon my word,” says another, “there are women in the ranks, carrying pails of water! There, one woman is going up a ladder to get those children out. What an indecorum! If they’d manage this matter properly, we would join them.”
And now come lumbering over from Charlestown the engines and fire-companies.
“What impudence of Charlestown,” say these men, “to be sending over here,—just as if we could not put our own fires out! They have fires over there, as much as we do.”
And now the flames roar and burn, and shake hands across the streets. They leap over the steeples, and glare demoniacally out of the church-windows.