"We just got back from Uncle Fred's!" answered Mr. Bunker. "I don't see how we can give the children another vacation so soon after they have just finished one. But I do want to have you pay us a long visit, Captain Ben. And we'll go in, as you say, and talk. But I must first make sure that the fire is out. Some one telephoned to me at the office that my house was burning up. I ran out, hailed the first man I saw in an auto, and he brought me here flying. I can't tell you how glad I was when I saw the house still standing."
"It isn't really harmed at all," said Captain Ben. "The chimney is used to having a fire in it, and all that happened in the kitchen is that a little water got spilled. Don't worry about the fire any more. Let's go in and talk. I want to get down to my place at the shore, and take you there with me."
Indeed there was no more danger from the fire. The crowd, seeing there was no further excitement, began to move away. The firemen coiled up their hose, and the engines and carts rumbled away. Norah shook her head dubiously as she saw the sloppy kitchen that she always kept so clean and bright, but Jerry Simms consoled her.
"I'll help you mop it up, Norah!" he kindly offered. "Water is easily gotten rid of—much more easily than fire. I'll help you clean up."
Norah was very thankful for this, and soon she and Jerry were busy setting things to rights in the kitchen while Daddy and Mother Bunker, with the children and Captain Ben, went into the sitting room. There was a smell of smoke all over, but no one minded this. Norah felt very bad, thinking that she might be blamed for the fire, since the chimney caught from the blaze she started in the kitchen range.
Mrs. Bunker realized this, and so she said:
"Don't worry, Norah. It would have happened to anyone. If I had started the fire the chimney would have caught just the same as it did when you started it."
"Well, I'm glad to hear you say that," remarked Norah, as she and Jerry continued the cleaning-up work.
The excitement caused by the fire was over now, and a little later the Bunker family, including the half dozen children of course, and Captain Ben were sitting down and talking like old friends. In fact, they were all old friends except the new man who had climbed up on the roof to put out the fire.
"What makes you call him Captain Ben?" asked Vi, as she looked up at the stranger.