"The fireman was badly scorched," reported the press next day, "but train and passengers were saved by the heroism of the engineer."
The words flashed along the wires over land and ocean; were set up in startling type in hundreds of newspaper offices while he who did not know heroism by name was breathing his last on a mattress laid on the yellow-painted floor of the room he had seen so "clear" when the engine-throb and piston-beat played Home, Sweet Home. The sunshine that had followed the rain touched the white cheek of the opened lily before falling on his sightless eyes and charred right hand.
When they brought him in he knew whose silent tears dropped so fast upon his face, and the poor burned lips moved in a husky whisper. The wife put her ear close to his mouth not to lose his dying words:
"I was afraid you'd see that we was a-fire. From the winder. I hope you—didn't—wake Junior!" The boy who had begged his father to be a hero!
BENNY'S WIGWAM.
"Now, Pettikins," said Benny Briggs, on the first day of vacation, "come along if you want to see the old Witch."
Pettikins got her little straw hat, and holding Benny's hand with a desperate clutch, trotted along beside him, giving frequent glances at his heroic face to keep up her courage. Her heart beat hard as they took their way across to the island. The island is really no island at all, but a lonely, lovely portion of Still Harbor, between Benny's home and Grandma Potter's, which by means of a small inlet and a little creek, and one watery thing and another, is so nearly surrounded by water as to feel justified in calling itself an island. They crossed over the little bridge that took them to this would-be island, and following an almost imperceptible wood path, came within sight of the Witch's hut. It was a deserted, useless, wood-chopper's hut, which the mysterious creature whom the children called a witch had taken possession of not long before. Here Fanny drew back. "O Benny, I am afraid," said she.
"Humph! she can't hurt you in the daytime," said Benny. "She ain't no different in the daytime from any other old woman. It's only nights she is a witch."
Fanny allowed herself to be led a few steps further, and then drew back again. "O Benny," said she, "there's her broomstick! there it is, right outside o' the door—and O Benny, Benny, there's her old black cat!"