“Kettle, Kettle, where are you?”
But there was no response. Then Betty, despite the Colonel’s efforts to hold her, rushed in the open door of the house, still calling frantically for Kettle. Fortescue saw her, and, swinging himself down from the roof, ran into the house after her. Outside, Colonel Beverley, his hands over his eyes, groaned aloud. Fortescue seized Betty in the little water drenched sitting-room, and, without a word, took her in his arms and carried her out. Betty resisted with all her girl’s strength. She was without fear, and naturally venturesome, and she felt that Kettle was being left to his fate, but there was a strange delight, a sudden joy, in being held close to Fortescue’s strongly beating heart. Then Fortescue went back to find Kettle. Although the fury of the fire was being subdued, great clouds of smoke were pouring through the house, and from the outside could be heard his voice shouting as he went from room to room, “Kettle! Kettle! Where are you?”
But there was no answer.
A vagrant gust of wind fanned the fire once more into flame, and it looked as if the house must go. The shingle roof over Betty’s room caught fire, and with a great roar and crackling the blaze leaped upward toward the lowering sky. Continually, Fortescue’s voice was heard calling for Kettle, as he searched the upper floor, blazing and dense with smoke. Suddenly his voice ceased, and no sound was heard except the roar of the flames and the cries and orders of those who were trying to save the little house. Betty’s heart stood still: suppose Fortescue should never come out of the house alive? She turned her head, with its graceful wreath of ivy leaves, away from the blazing house, and could have shrieked aloud in her agony of fear. Then, through the open door of the house, and in the midst of the dense smoke, she saw Fortescue staggering, and carrying a black object in his arms. It was Kettle, frightfully burned, but conscious. In his hands he clutched a little fan which was a part of Betty’s outfit for parties. One look at Fortescue showed that he was not badly injured, although half stifled by the smoke. No moan escaped from Kettle, but as Betty ran up he opened his eyes and, looking at her with a pitiful attempt at his usual merry grin, gasped out feebly:
“Miss Betty, I done save yo’ party fan.”
Betty burst into a flood of tears. At that moment a merciful downpour of rain came from the leaden sky. The roaring of the flames turned to a loud hissing and crackling as clouds of steam mounted upward. It was possible then to take Kettle into the house. The Colonel’s room had not been touched either by water or fire, and it was there that they carried Kettle.
“Somebody go for Dr. Markham!” cried Betty.
A dozen willing feet ran to the stable, and a dozen willing hands hitched up old Whitey to the rockaway, and Uncle Cesar, climbing into the little carriage, drove off furiously to the village two miles away. Meanwhile, Aunt Tulip and Betty applied such simple remedies as they knew to poor Kettle’s wounds. The Colonel stood by the boy, saying to him:
“Be a man, Kettle, be a little man. The doctor will soon be here.”