Margaret and Louise heard a curious commingling of sounds they were never to forget. Edith had broken away and was running with outstretched arms and lowered head toward the narrow door opening into the factory office.
Came the noise of an explosion, then muffled cries from within the building, growing in volume, and echoed by the inhabitants of the nearby cottages and tenements.
A bell pealed somewhere. Several men rushed by on the way to give the alarm.
Too stunned to be of service for the moment, Margaret and Louise crowded against a friendly fence.
Why were the men and women, the girls and boys inside the burning building not already streaming out into the streets?
Out of the downstairs windows a few people were jumping and pushing one another. From the front door a dozen women and men ran and then a little distance off stood still, gazing upward and calling to friends above the uproar.
Edith Linder did not reappear.
A half dozen policemen appeared. Louise and Margaret found themselves thrust backward and not allowed beyond a certain line.
“What is the trouble? Why don’t they clear out?” the girls overheard one man ask the other.
“Something pretty bad is the trouble! The fire has started below and the stairs are choked with smoke. Too many people in there for the size of the building. I have been afraid of something like this.”