“Yes, and it hisses like a snake too,” replied Jonas.
Rollo listened, and he could just hear a hissing sound mingling with all the other noises. He stepped out into the street to see how the hissing sound was produced.
They found that at one of the joints of the hose there was a little leak, and the water spouted from it in a stream, which, though it was very small and slender, mounted as high as Rollo’s head. The light from the fire shone so brightly upon this part of the street that Rollo could see the operation very distinctly.
Jonas thought that it was not very safe for them to remain in the midst of the road much longer; so they went back to the sidewalk, and then began to move along towards the fire. The crowd was so dense that they could not get along very well; but at last they came to a place where they got up upon some steps, where they could see pretty well, only that Rollo was not tall enough. There were many others standing upon the steps, and Rollo could not see very well over their shoulders. There was, however, a pretty high stone post at the top of the flight of steps, and very near the house, where Jonas thought that perhaps Rollo could sit, if he could get him up there. Rollo was afraid that the place was not wide enough, for there was a ball upon the post, and he could only sit upon that part of the top of the post which was upon one side of the ball.
However, Rollo was so desirous of seeing them put out the fire, that he concluded to try, and so Jonas helped him climb up. He found the place a better one than he had expected. He clasped one hand around the ball, and he rested the other upon Jonas’s shoulder and by this means he found that he had a firm and comfortable seat; and the fire, with all the operations connected with it, were in full view before him.
Just as he got established in his seat, he saw a stream from another engine beginning to issue from its pipe, and to rise up towards the building. The man who held the pipe stood upon the top of the engine, and he held it in such a way as to direct it towards one of the upper windows. Rollo could see the red flame through the window, as the shutter had been burned, and all the glass had fallen away; and, now and then, a great puff of flame would come out, when any momentary change in the wind drove the fire in that direction. The stream of water went directly in at the window. At first, it produced very little effect; but presently he observed that it began to deaden the redness of the fire just within the window. Rollo thought that this engine was far more powerful than the one which he had noticed before. That still continued to play around behind the building. Rollo occasionally got a glimpse of other jets, coming from engines which were standing on that side. Sometimes these jets came away over the top of the building, and Rollo could see them broken into drops as their force was spent, but still shooting forward through the flames in regular pulsations, produced by the successive strokes of the engines from which they came.
By all these means, the fire was soon perceptibly diminished. The window into which the engine was playing soon ceased to look red at all; and presently Rollo saw a tall ladder rising slowly above the heads of the crowd. The lower end of it was nearly under the window, which he had been noticing, while the other end extended almost across the street, and slowly rose. Rollo was expecting every moment to see it fall back upon the heads of the people who were under it; but it did not. It ascended slowly and steadily, until the upper end passed over, and fell against the building, a little above the window. In a moment, a man appeared at the foot, climbing up the rounds laboriously, as if he was carrying up a burden which made him mount with difficulty. Rollo saw, pretty soon, that he had an engine pipe in his hands; and presently he observed that it was the same man whom he had seen before, holding the pipe of the engine, and directing the stream into the window. The man ascended slowly, dragging up the pipe, and the hose which was attached to the bottom of it, until, at length, when the hose became so long that he could not lift it any farther, another man took hold below, and presently another; and at last there were four men at different parts of the ladder, all lifting up the hose.
When the man at the top got the pipe up opposite to the window, he pointed it in, and then Rollo could see him looking down, and gesticulating very violently to those below. He seemed to be calling out to them; but there was so much noise that Rollo could not hear what he said. However, presently the man turned around towards the building again, and seemed to be attending to his pipe, and Rollo could see that the water was spouting through it very furiously into the building.
By this time, the fire had been so much deadened, by the various jets of water which had been poured upon it from all sides, that the flames no longer ascended above the roof, but, instead of flame, there was a tall column of dense white smoke, illuminated by the embers which still glowed below. Rollo and Jonas remained nearly half an hour, watching the progress of the extinguishing of the fire; and then, as Rollo began to feel his seat somewhat uncomfortable, they returned together to the hotel. Rollo said he wondered that the other buildings did not take fire; but Jonas told him that bricks were a pretty good non-conductor of heat, and that, if the walls which divided such a block were of proper thickness, one store was often burned out of the block, without setting fire to the adjoining buildings.