Ethel Morton at Chautauqua

by Mabell S. C. Smith

"The house is on fire, don't you hear it?" shrieked Ethel Brown. "What's the matter? Can't you help? Run and call 'Fire.' Run, I say."

Ethel Blue, stirred to life, disappeared, and Ethel Brown seized one of the hand fire extinguishers which are in every Chautauqua cottage, and attempted to open the door into Helen's room again. A scorching blast drove her back and she gave up the attempt. Thrusting her head out of the window she screamed "Fire," and at the same time saw Dicky running safely toward the Hancocks'. Even in her terror she noticed that in pulling him out of the burning room she had torn his ample bloomers. A hanging rag streamed from them as he ran.

A new thought struck Ethel and she flung herself on the banisters and slid to the foot. When she looked from the window she had seen the red gleam of a fire alarm box on a tree almost in front of the house. She rushed to it and beat on the glass with her fists.

Almost immediately the wild shriek of a siren tore the air. Footsteps came running from all sides. She had been glad that it happened that no one was at home, but she was equally glad when she saw Mary running from the direction of the Pier. Margaret Hancock called to her that Dicky was safe. Ethel waved her understanding, and seizing the hand of Ethel Blue who appeared from somewhere and clung timidly to her skirt she ran back into the house to get the silver from the dining-room.

"Take this and this and this," she whispered breathlessly, piling Dicky's mug and a handful of forks and another of spoons into Ethel Blue's upheld skirt. "Here's the butter dish. It's lucky we left the tea set at home. Now then, take those to the Hancocks' and I'll go upstairs and see if I can save any of our clothes."

"Oh, Ethel, I ought to go with you," whimpered Ethel Blue.

"Run, I tell you," commanded Ethel Brown who found herself growing cooler every minute.

People were coming into the house now and rushing about with chairs in their hands, uncertain where to set them down. A woman from the boarding house next door began to carry out the china and lay it on the grass, and Mary tossed pans out of the kitchen window and piled the wash tubs full of groceries for the men to move.

From the lake front rose shouting and along the road came one of the chemical engines hauled by the bellboys of the hotel. Another rolled down the steep hill from the Post Office, these men struggling as hard to hold it back as those from the hotel were pulling. Down the same hill came the water hose, and yet other chemicals from the business block, the Book Store, wherever they were kept ready for emergencies. For a few minutes every man was a fire chief and every volunteer shouted commands which he himself was the first to disobey.

But order developed in an amazingly short time. The boarding house between the Mortons and the Hancocks caught fire in spite of the efforts of a bucket brigade which tried to wet down the roof. Consternation reigned when a shout drew the attention of the firemen to the flaming of the sun-dried shingles in one corner and almost at the same moment to the flash of a curtain fired by a mass of cinders whirled from the Mortons' cottage right through an open window.