“’Tis kind of smoky, ain’t it,” she said. “And the wind’s beginning to shift.” She looked up over the rise of the hill in front of the house. Above it poured great belching masses of lurid smoke. Even as she looked, the huge winglike mass veered and swayed in the sky like vast shapes of strange animals. Jean caught her breath as she gazed.
Becky started out to the car with Doris. “Jean, you go and get Cynthy quick as you can!” she called.
Jean ran to the house and met Cynthy groping her way nervously downstairs. She was old and frail and her scrawny hands clutching the banister were knotted and the veins were large.
“What on earth is it?” she faltered. “Land, I ain’t had such a set-to with my heart in years. Is the fire coming this way? Where’s Becky?”
“She says for you to come right away. Please, please hurry up, Miss Allan.”
But Cynthy sat down in a forlorn heap on the step, rocking her arms, and crying, piteously.
“Oh, I never, never can leave them, my poor, precious darlings. Can’t you get them for me? There’s General Washington and Ethan Allen, Betsey Ross and Pocahontas, and there’s three new kittens in my yarn basket in the old garret over the ell.”
Jean surmised that she meant her pet cats, dearer to her probably than any human being in the world. Supporting her gently, she got her out of the house, promising her she would find the cats. For the next five minutes, just at the most crucial moment, she hunted for the cats, and finally succeeded in coaxing all of them into meal bags. Every scurrying breeze brought down fluttering wisps of half-burned leaves from the burning woods. The shouts of the men could be plainly heard calling to each other as they worked to keep the fire back from the valuable timber along the river front.
“I think we’ve just about time to get by before the fire breaks through,” said Mrs. Ellis calmly. Jean was on the back seat, one arm supporting old Cynthy, her other hand pacifying the rebellious captives in the bags.
Not a word was said as Becky turned the car toward home, but they had not gone far before the wind changed suddenly. The full force of the smoke from the fire-swept area poured over them suffocatingly. Cynthy half-rose to her feet in terror, Jean’s arm around her waist trying to hold her down as she screamed.