The lightning and the gale!
XL.—CHICAGO.
1. It is the evening of October 9, 1871. The great city of the West is settling down into the quiet of the night. The Sabbath has ended. The churches have closed, and citizens of all ranks and kinds are peacefully resting in their homes. The guardians of the night are all out, faithful to watch, quick to detect, and prompt to act. Three hundred thousand people throw off the cares of the day, and seek their needed repose. No cause of alarm, save the wind, which since noon has risen from a gentle breeze to a fierce gale at sunset. Even now it increases, and in the morning papers we may expect a catalogue of chimneys blown down, and of houses unroofed. Beyond this there is nothing to fear, and all is well.
View of Chicago from Madison Street Bridge, before the Fire.
2. A little way out from what is now the heart of the town was a section covered with piles of lumber and rows of wooden tenements ready for the torch. The lights are flickering through the dark alleys as a poor woman takes a lamp and goes into a hovel to milk the cow. The blustering wind bids her be careful. An uneasy movement of the cow, and the lamp is overturned into the straw and litter of the stable. A flame shoots up, and the milker has scarcely time to reach the door when the whole building is on fire. She, with her children, rush into the street, as the flame comes in through roof, window, and doorway of her dwelling. Then the roar of the wind-swept flame and the appalling cry of fire!
3. But the city is prepared for these accidents. The fire-bells ring out their alarm. Trained horses take their places by the steam fire-engines, and the heart has scarcely time to beat before they are on a mad gallop down the streets. In a moment a thousand jets of water will subdue the fire, and the city will again sink to quiet rest.
4. But, swift as the firemen speed to the scene, the flame is swifter still. Borne on the wings of the wind, it leaps from street to street. It is no longer a wind but a tempest, and a tempest of flame. The track of the devouring element broadens and dives toward the heart of the city. Men, women, and children rush frantically to get out of the path of destruction. Down go miles of stately houses and blocks of business. The reservoirs of grain, the vast hotels, and the spires of churches appear for a moment through the glare, then melt away into ashes. The whole world is in flames!
5. While hope remains, men are active; but now they stand in sullen despair. They look on helpless and hopeless through the long hours of the night. The first rays of the morning reveal a scene of widespread and total desolation. The heart of the city has been consumed. Twenty thousand of its inhabitants are homeless.
6. One consoling thought is left. The fire-fiend is at last curbed, hemmed in on the east by the lake, on the north by the river which stretches between it and the homes in which seventy-five thousand people are peacefully asleep, all unaware of the devastation that has been raging so near them. Surely the fiery foe will not reach those homes. The river is their protection. The comforting thought is but momentary. Already a livid cloud is sweeping across the narrow stream. Burning brands and glowing embers are borne on the wings of a fierce tornado straight toward those peaceful homes.