The two girls pushed their way through the throng until they were at the edge of the crowd, right before the burning building. The fire engines were snorting at the curb. Firemen in their black rubber coats and hats were shouting orders. The friendly traffic policeman from the Journal corner had left his post and was busy waving his white-gloved hands about, to keep the crowds back within a certain distance of the fire.
Joan counted the engines and squeezed Amy’s hand. “All the companies in town are here.”
The girls stood watching the fire for some time. The heat rushed out at them. The crackle and roar sounded like the ocean—or the way Joan imagined the ocean would sound. The bright flames flung flickering, eerie shadows over drab Main Street. Now, the firemen must be getting it under control, for great gobs of black smoke were oozing out of the building. The smoke smarted their eyes and the smell of the fire filled their nostrils. They saw Lefty up in a window of a building across the street, taking pictures.
Joan had spotted Tim now. He was standing in the gutter, where the spray from the hose occasionally spattered him with a few stray drops. He had his pad and yellow pencil in his hand and was trying to ask questions of a fireman standing in the fire engine, unwinding the hose, too busy to do more than motion Tim to go away. Wasn’t it a good thing he had been to the recent West fire and knew how to write this one up?
“Ed Hutton sure is in luck to have the old place go up in smoke,” Joan heard a man who was pressing against her in the mob, say to his companion. “I guess the place is plastered with insurance. He was intending to build here, anyway.”
Edward Hutton was the Journal’s candidate for governor. Did the man mean that he was the owner of the building? She wondered whether Tim knew that. She tried to signal to him that she had found out something, but he was jamming his pad and pencil into his coat pocket with a disgusted thrust and was leaping over the hose to back out of the crowd.
“Let’s go.” Amy pulled her arm. “A fire isn’t really exciting when it’s just an empty building. Of course, people lived upstairs, but they’re all out, some one said. Anyway, poor people in flats aren’t interesting.”
“When something happens to a poor person, it’s just as much news as though it happened to a rich person. In fact, I think poor people are more interesting,” Joan said, heatedly. “I’m going to ask one of the firemen whether the people did get out all right or not.”
“Jo, I’m going home, if you’re going to start up conversations with strange men that you haven’t been properly introduced to.” Amy broke away. “Besides, there’s nothing to see, and the smoke makes my eyes red. I know I look a sight.”
“All right, you can go,” Joan said. “I’m going to stick around until the all-out alarm is sounded.”