Bert Wilson's Fadeaway Ball

by J. W. Duffield

All but one were filled with despair. Bert, scanning the building for some means of rescue, saw that a large leader pipe ran down a corner of the building from roof to ground, and was secured to the walls of the house by broad, iron brackets. The space between it and the window where the child stood seemed to be about three feet. If he could climb that leader by means of those iron supports, he might be able to leap across the intervening space and reach the window.

All this passed through Bert’s mind with lightning-like rapidity. He knew that if he failed to reach the window—well, he would not consider that.

Coming to quick decision, he ran forward, dodged the detaining hands stretched out, and before anyone had an inkling of his purpose, was climbing the ladder from bracket to bracket. More than one called frantically to come back, but with the thought of that despairing mother, and with his eyes fixed on the little child in the window, he went on steadily up, foot by foot, until, at last, he was on a level with the window. Now he found that distance had deceived him and that the window was fully five feet away instead of three.

The crowd, standing breathless now, and still as death, saw him pause and every heart ached with apprehension, fearing that he would be forced to return and leave the little one to her awful fate. Eyes smarted with the intensity with which they stared. Could he with almost nothing to brace his feet upon, spring across that five feet of wall? He could not even take a half-minute to think. The flames might at any second burst through the floor into the room in which the little child had taken refuge. He dared not look down, but in climbing he had noticed that the flames, as the wind swayed them, were sweeping across the ladders. He must decide.

His resolve was taken, and he gathered his muscles together for the spring.

Now, Bert, you have need to call upon all your resources. Well for you that your training on the diamond has limbered and strengthened your muscles, steadied your nerves, quickened your eye, taught you lightning perception and calculation and decision. You have need of them all now. Courage, Bert! Ready, now!

The frantic mother saw him gather himself together and spring to what seemed to be certain death. His fingers grip the window sill, but, as his weight drags upon them, they slip. Ah! he never can hold that smooth surface—and many turn away their faces, unable to bear the sight. But look! he is still there. His fingers desperately tighten their grip upon the sill, and now he begins to draw himself up, slowly, reaching inside the window for a firmer hold. He has his knee on the sill—and a great shout goes up from the crowd as he drops inside the window beside the child.

But their relief was short-lived, for now the same thought seized everyone. How was he to get back? He could not return the way he went up, for, even unhampered by the child, he could not make the leap back to the pipe. With anxious, despairing eyes, they watched the window from which great clouds of smoke were pouring now, mingled with tiny tongues of flame.

It seemed an hour that they had waited, but it was only a few moments before the brave fellow reappeared at the window, with the child wrapped in a blanket, strapped firmly to his shoulders. Another moment and a long woolen blanket dangled from the window sill, and with the agility of a monkey Bert began to let himself down hand over hand. With beating hearts into which hope had begun again to creep, the breathless people watched him.

But surely the flames, sweeping now up and out from the second story window will shrivel that blanket and burn it through. But they do not, for though they wrap themselves fiercely about it, they seem unable to destroy it; and now his feet touch the topmost round of the ladder. Another moment and his hands are upon it also.