This precautionary measure was barely under way, when a second shouting and clanging of bells announced the approach of the Sea Garth Volunteer Hose Company No. 1. They did not possess horses and their progress had of necessity been slower. Accompanied by an excited escort of barefooted boys, they swept like a tidal wave across shaven lawns and flowered borders.
"Keep them back! Keep them back!" wailed Mrs. Carter, in a sudden access of helplessness. "Peter, William, stop them! Thank them and send them home." She accosted the hook and ladder chief. "Tell them it's all over. Tell them that you yourself have already done everything that's necessary."
"Sorry, Mrs. Carter, but it's impossible. There hasn't been a fire in this town for the last three months, and then it was only a false alarm. They're sore enough as it is because we got here first. A little water won't hurt anything; we're in need of rain. You go in the house, Mrs. Carter, and trust to me. I won't let them do any more damage than necessary."
The hose company bore down upon the scene of confusion that surrounded the wrecked waggon-shed with an air of pleased expectancy. Their faces fell as they caught sight of the pitiable size of the fire; but the new chief, with quickly reviving cheerfulness, usurped dictatorship, and soon had a generous stream of water playing upon the embers.
Mrs. Carter, with a last plaintive appeal to Peter to get rid of them, resumed her natural aloofness; and she and Mrs. Brainard trailed their smoke-grimed splendour toward the house, driving the vanquished braves before them.
When, finally, the last spark was irretrievably dead, the duck pond was nearly dry and everything else was wet, the firemen reloaded their ladders and hose, their buckets and rubber helmets, and noisily trundled away. The Willowbrook contingent sat down and mopped their grimy brows.
"Will you look at my flower-beds?" mourned Tom. "Walked right over 'em, they did."
"An' will ye look at the clothes on the line?" cried Nora. "They walked slap through them wid their dir-rty hands."
"Go and look at the carriage-house floor," Peter growled. "They turned a three-inch stream o' water in at the front door; it looks as if the flood o' Arrerat had struck us. If I ever ketch that lobster of a fire chief out alone, I'll teach 'im 'is dooty, I will." He paused to examine his person. "Gee! but I blistered me hands." He carried the examination further. "An' these is me best pants," he muttered. "The next time I helps along their innocint divarsions, I'll get me life insured."