"Oh, she's all right—no thanks to that hired girl of yours though. If I was you, I'd give her the bounce before she's a couple of hours older, that's what I'd do!"
The girls did not stop for further observations on the delinquency of Annie, but joined a group of people who were gathering on the Harrisons' front porch.
Some of these had tried to force their way into the house, but had been driven back by the clouds of smoke.
"Looks like the whole place would go up," one of them said and received a warning glance from the neighbors as Nan and her chums ran up on the porch.
One of the men, an old harness maker, barred the girls' way as they were about to enter the house.
"Better not go in there," said the harness maker, who was a kindly old man and had long been a pleasant neighbor of the Harrisons'. "There's too much smoke. It would choke you."
"A lot of smoke, but no fire!" cried Nan wonderingly. "I don't understand. Where are the flames?"
Jo, who was beginning to entertain a theory as to the true origin of the smoke, spoke with an air of decision.
"I know one thing, and that is that if the man who went in Aunt Emma's window doesn't come out soon, some one will have to go in and drag him out. He can't stand that smoke very long. I've been in it—and I know!"
"Looks like you'd been down the chimbley," chirped an old man with a wrinkled, parchment-like face and a back bent like a bow. "You got plenty of soot on you, that's one thing sartain, young woman."