The Third Alarm: A Story of the New York Fire Department

by James L. Ford

“Oh I was just out for a walk,” replied Skinny with his accustomed air of careless bravado, but just then he happened to remember the role that he was assuming, and he added with great haste “I taut mebbe I could get a job some’rs around here. I want work, dat’s wot I want.”

Having said this he politely handed his new acquaintance her shawl and stood regarding her critically through his keen blue eyes. The young lady in her turn subjected the boy to a scrutiny that was as careful as that with which he regarded her and in a moment or two she said “If you will get into the carriage with me I will take you down to my house and perhaps my husband will find something for you to do. At any rate, he will give you something for finding the shawl.”

“I don’t want nuthin’ for lettin’ go de shawl. I wanter get a job of some kind ernuther. I tink I’d like ter try a little country life.”

“Well, jump in with me and I’ll see what can be done for you” rejoined his new acquaintance, and Skinny accepted her invitation without another word. He climbed up to the seat beside her and waited quietly while she turned her horse around and started in the direction of Rocky Point. The boy enjoyed the ride very much, but although it was full of wonderful surprises to him, he did not show by his face or manner that it was the first time in his life that he had ever been more than twenty miles away from New York. As for the broad expanse of water that lay stretched out before him he was sure it was either the Atlantic Ocean or the Gulf of Mexico or the Pacific, he did not know which and he did not care enough to ask. As they rode along they passed field after field of ripened corn and wide orchards in which men were busy shaking the fruit from the trees and gathering it in great heaps on the grass ready for packing in barrels. Occasionally they passed bits of woodland in which the trees, touched by the early frosts, were brilliant in red, yellow and scarlet. Farmers passed them on the road, riding in wagons piled high with corn and apples, and once Skinny saw a load of yellow pumpkins, the like of which he had never set eyes on before. It was all very new and strange to the city boy, and his keen eyes took in everything about him, but not a word escaped his lips that betrayed his utter ignorance of country life.

He made up his mind, however, that it would be best for him to tell his companion that he had come from New York, because, he argued, she would be sure to find it out herself even if she had not already noticed the difference between a boy from the city and the “jayhawkers,” as he denominated them whom he judged constituted the bulk of the population of the neighborhood. Therefore he told her that he had made his way from New York by easy stages—“dey wuz easy too” he said to himself with a chuckle—and that he wanted to get work on a farm or in a country hotel. To the lady who rode beside him, the boy’s desire to get out of the city into the country seemed but a natural one, while his honesty in restoring her lost shawl and his avowed purpose to get work of some kind commended him strongly to her, and she determined to give him whatever help she could. On the outskirts of the village of Rocky Point she drew up in front of a large, comfortable looking farm house and bade her companion descend and open the gate. A tall, sunburned and bearded man who was standing in his shirt sleeves by the barn door now came forward to greet his wife.

“I’ve brought a boy home for you Silas,” she remarked pointing to Skinny who was standing holding the gate open for her to enter, “what do you think of him?” The husband smiled pleasantly in response but the glance which he bestowed on the new arrival was one of curiosity blended with a degree of suspicion.

“Where did you pick him up,” he said as he helped his wife to alight.

It was a strange thing to the newsboy, whose life had been spent in the streets of the great city, to find himself awaking the next morning in a clean, wholesome bed in a room which, if not elegant, was at least comfortable, neat and redolent of old fashioned country herbs. Of course he did not question the honesty of his host or hostess but from sheer force of habit and as a precautionary measure, too, he examined the roll of bills in his inside pocket and assured himself that they were all there. Then he dressed himself, stole quietly down stairs and found Mrs. Wolcott busy in her big kitchen.

Her husband was out in the barn, and there Skinny found him, giving the horses and cattle their morning meal. There was plenty about the farm for a boy to turn his hand to, and Skinny’s first job was driving the cows out to the pasture where there was still to be found a good deal of grass that had defied the cold weather. It was an easy and not unpleasant task strolling along the road, letting down the bars of the pasture lot, watching the cattle as they streamed through, and then putting up the bars and walking back to the farm house where Mrs. Wolcott had just put the breakfast on the table. The boy found, too, that his walk had given him an excellent appetite and he consumed such an amount of country luxuries as fairly surprised himself. Breakfast over he helped the farmer put the two horses in the big wagon, then climbed in and accompanied him to the corn field a mile away.

By the exercise of his customary and habitual silence, and by carefully watching the farmer and the hired man, Skinny managed not only to acquit himself with credit in their eyes but to impress them with the idea, that it might be a handy thing to have a boy of his sort about the farm all the time, or at least until the harvesting was over.