"That won't be any good for this fire, no matter how much force of water you have," cried the fireman. "The fire's down inside the chimney, and we can't get at it until we climb up on the roof and stick a hose down the flue."
"Is that what you are going to do?" asked Mrs. Bunker, who was not frightened, now that she knew her children were safe.
"Yes, we want to get up on the roof so we can turn a hose down the chimney," the fireman answered. "But we can't get up!"
"Why not?" asked Russ, who stood near his mother on the porch, while the yard and the street around the house were rapidly filling with people.
"Our ladder isn't long enough," the fireman answered. "We had a long ladder, but it is broken, and without it we can't get up on the roof to pull up a hose and squirt water down the chimney."
"But something must be done!" cried Mrs. Bunker. "The more the chimney fire burns, the hotter it will get, and it may set the whole house ablaze before long. Something must be done!"
"Yes'm," agreed the fireman. "We're trying to do something. We got two engines pumping, and the men are on the ground trying to shoot the water up in the air and let some of it fall down the chimney hole. But they aren't having very good luck. I came to see if you had a long ladder."
"Oh, a long ladder!" cried the mother of the six little Bunkers. "You had better ask Jerry Simms."
"If he's the old man running around with the garden hose, it won't do much good to ask him," said the fireman with a smile. "He is so excited he hardly knows what he is doing."
"Here comes Jerry now; ask him," suggested Mrs. Bunker again, while Norah stood holding to Mun Bun, Laddie, Margy and Violet—at least she was trying to hold them, though, every now and again, one of the children would break away and run to the front fence to watch the puffing engines.