“Well,” said the old gentleman pleasantly, “you ask some of the lads of your acquaintance how they’d like to join such a school as that and put down on paper any ideas you may have regarding it. Then the next time I see you we will talk them over.”
As Bruce walked slowly homeward after one of the pleasantest hours he had spent since his arrival in the city, he felt a new pride which he had never known before, in the great department which it was his wish to serve. The fact that fire departments had existed since the earliest times had never occurred to him, and he determined to devote all his leisure time to a study of Mr. Dewsnap’s pet scheme of a training school in the hope that he might be able to render the kindly old gentlemen some service which he would appreciate.
Chapter XI.
It was not at all unnatural that Bruce Decker should cherish in his heart a strong desire to go to a fire as one of the members of the truck company. This longing grew stronger in his heart every day, and when the opportunity did come it found him, fortunately enough, ready to make the most of it.
It happened one warm day in August, that three or four of the men were absent on their summer’s vacation and one or two others because of illness, and while the company was thus crippled, Charley Weyman fell and hurt his right arm so badly that the chief advised him to go around to the nearest doctor’s and have it dressed. As the injured fireman left the quarters, his superior turned to Bruce and said, “My boy, you see how short-handed we are to-day; now do you think that if an alarm should come in you could take Weyman’s place on the driver’s seat?”
The boy’s eyes brightened and there was an eager look in his face as he made answer, “I’m sure I could and I only wish that an alarm would come in.”
“All right,” said the chief “just keep yourself in readiness for we can never know when there is an alarm coming.”
Then he went up stairs, and Bruce stepped out into the street, and looked up and down it as far as his eye could reach as if he expected to see the smoke and flame bursting out from some building within his range of vision. But the sun poured down on his bare head, and he was soon glad to retreat to the shade of the quarters, where he stood idly looking at the brass gongs, and wondering how soon they would begin to ring out their tale of smoke, flame and disaster.
And then the thought occurred to him that he had no right to stand there wishing for a fire which might bring ruin and death to his fellow creatures, and could benefit no one but himself; and it was not at all certain that it would benefit even him. So he satisfied his conscience by changing the form although not the tenor of his thoughts. “I wish,” he said to himself “that if it were necessary for the world’s good to have a fire to-day that it might be right here within this district. There’s no harm in wishing that I’m sure. Of course I wouldn’t like to have any people killed at the fire or to have any poor man lose all his furniture and clothes, but there are fires every day, and this is the first time I’ve ever had a chance—”
“Clang! clang!” rang out the brass gong at his side, and never, since the first time that he heard an alarm ring, had the sound of the bell stirred him with such excitement as it did now.