Some were bravely at work in the heat passing water-buckets. One was on a roof near the fire playing the hose. They said he was H. M. Pearl. I saw the ladder he had climbed, and the thought came to me that here was my chance at last, and I made my way up it through heat and smoke to the side of my friend. As I fought the falling cinders I wondered if Jo would ever hear of it.
“The fire has got more power than we have!” Pearl shouted to me.
He worked for a few minutes only when the water gave out. The fire had been forcing us back, and a blast now and then scorched our faces.
“We'll have to adjourn,” said Pearl; and we slid down the smoking ladder with blistered hands and faces, and our coats afire.
Heartsdale was more than half destroyed that night, and the marble-shop was in ruins. Pearl had seen the truth—the village had not power enough for its foe. Every day or two some town or city was burning up for that reason.
“The country is like a boy that has outgrown his strength,” Pearl said to me. “It needs more power; that stream o' water didn't have squirt enough to drown a bee.”
“And better management,” I suggested.
“Power and management go hand in hand,” said he. “When power comes it will bring brains along with it.”
I wrote an account of my adventure on the roof for the weekly Courier. It was published over my full name, and not since have I so pleased myself. Did not the editor speak of me as “a polished writer” and “a brave lad”? I read it over again and again, and sent a marked copy to my friends in Summerville.
The Courier of that week was full of history.