Hitting the line

by Ralph Henry Barbour

“They’re getting it,” one of them answered breathlessly. “How bad is it? Where is it?”

But Monty was already hurrying across to where a knot of boys was pulling the garden hose from the bulkhead. In a minute they had it connected at a sill-cock under the bay-window, but the water didn’t come and someone remembered that it was turned off in the cellar. The Fuller House fellows were pouring out now, armed with anything in the shape of buckets or pitchers they could find, and presently a bucket line was established across the lawn and the hose was spurting. At that moment the bell in School Hall set up its clangor. It was Monty who kicked in the little window to the cellar nearest the furnace, where the fire had started, presumably from an overheated flue, and directed the stream of the hose. Someone found a step-ladder, set it against the dining-room bay and climbed it, bucket in hand, only to topple off, with the ladder coming down on top of him. But some degree of order and method was finally established and the two dozen or so youths made a courageous fight of it. By that time other fellows began appearing on the scene, hastily clad residents of Lothrop and Trow and Manning, and Mr. Craig, the superintendent of buildings, accompanied by the school janitor and his assistant, also arrived. They had brought the two school apparatus, tanks of chemical extinguisher mounted on trucks and supplied with long lines of hose, and Mr. Craig took command of the battle.

The window in the kitchen crumbled and the flames, hitherto confined inside, burst out. Monty was instructed to direct his energies with the garden hose there while the chemical extinguishers were run around to the front and the hose from them dragged into the house. It was at this stage that the Grafton Fire Department made a belated appearance with much éclat and confusion. Several minutes were spent in finding the hydrant and making a connection, but at last two streams were playing on the fire. Monty caught sight of Mrs. Fair and the cook being helped along the sidewalk to Fuller. For the first time he thought of his possessions. It seemed to him that all the fire departments in the state could not save the old wooden building and he wondered whether it would be permissible to hand his job to another and try to rescue his clothes and other belongings. But if Monty had forgotten the task of salvage others had not, it seemed, for already the street in front of the house began to present an incongruous appearance in the light of the street lamps as chairs and couches and various articles of furniture were borne from the first floor rooms and dumped helter-skelter in the road. There were a few things that Monty set store by, and, since another could direct the inadequate stream from the garden hose as well as he, he speedily found a substitute and made his way through the curious and excited throng to the front.

The front door had been torn off and in and out of the murky interior of the doomed house the firemen were hurrying. Two pulsing lines of white hose writhed up the steps and into the lurid depths of the building. A fat fireman with a helmet cocked erratically on one side of his head was pushing the volunteer salvage corps away.

“That’ll do,” Monty heard him vociferating. “’Tain’t safe no more. Them walls is likely to come down. Keep out, everyone of you!”

From where he stood, a dozen yards from the house, Monty could see that the whole left side of the house was destroyed. The firemen appeared to be concentrating their efforts on the other half, trying to cut off the flames at the hall which ran from front to rear through the center. He looked upward. The second floor windows showed dark, but smoke curled from them. He made his way around to the far side of the house and looked at the window of Number 14. The light that he had left burning was out and the open window showed first black and then dull red. He didn’t believe that the flames had reached there yet, but as they wouldn’t let him past the door there was no chance of rescuing anything. Well, it couldn’t be helped, he reflected. Although if he could find a ladder somewhere he could easily get in at the window. A few fellows were prowling around on that side, but no one paid any attention to him as he lifted the doors of the bulkhead, fortunately unlocked, and peered into the darkness below. As he knew, there was a division wall between this side of the basement and the furnace compartment. Such tools as the lawn-mower and rake and garden hose and ladder were stored there, and Mrs. Fair kept her geraniums hanging against the wall like so many scalps. The air was hot and acrid with smoke, but no sign of flames showed as he stumbled down the half-dozen steps. But once down there the smoke was almost intolerable and the sound of the fire, the hiss of water and the blows of axes were deafening. But he put his hand readily on what he sought and swung it from the wall and went staggering up the steps with it.

The ladder was short and used chiefly to wash windows and prune the few trees around the house, but when Monty had it leaning against the side of the building under his window he saw that it would answer his purpose. The highest rung was a foot under the sill, but he could easily pull himself up and into the room. With his foot on the first round, he paused. Then he took off the dressing-gown he wore and dropped it beside the ladder. “No use having that thing tripping me up,” he muttered. Then he climbed the ladder. At the top a gust of hot, evil-smelling air blew into his face, but he laid hold of the sill, got a foot on the top rung and pulled himself upward and into the room. Darkness that was now and then tinged with a red-brown glow from the transom filled the room, that and an almost intolerable smoke. He wished there was some way of making a light as he hesitated an instant at the window, but he hadn’t so much as a match and doubted if a match would be of any use in that murk if he could find one. Taking a deep breath of the clearer air at the window he dashed across to the alcove and found a towel. This he dipped in the pitcher and then wound hurriedly across his face beneath the eyes. There was no way to fasten it, so he held it with his left hand while, with his right, he pulled open the drawers of his bureau. For the next three minutes he worked at top speed, bumping into things as, with closed eyes, he hurried from closet to bureau, from bureau to window. He managed to get his bag packed with clothes and a few articles that he prized, and then, clasping it, he dropped it from the window and heard it thump against the ground.

He stayed there a long moment, the towel off, breathing in lungfuls of fresh air. He wondered if Standart had saved any of his things. Wondered, in case he hadn’t what he valued most. He tried to think of anything else of his own that was worth bothering about and finally ducked back again and secured a handful of underwear from a bottom drawer and dumped it through the casement. Some of the things landed against the ladder and hung there ludicrously. Then the thought of Standart’s belongings returned to him and he fumbled his way back to Standart’s closet and swept an armful of clothes from the pegs. Halfway across to the window he stopped, assailed by a doubt. Where was Standart? He hadn’t seen him once from the time he had awakened him! He had not been with them downstairs, nor had he shown up outside later! Monty went quickly to the window and got rid of his burden and then, choking, his eyes streaming and smarting, sprang across to Standart’s bed.

With vast relief, he found it empty, the clothes huddled together. That was all right, then. Standart was safe. But, back at the window a new fear reached him. Perhaps he had not got out, after all! Perhaps he was still somewhere in the house. He certainly had not seen him. For a moment he hesitated. Then he threw off the fear with a shrug of his shoulders. Standart had been awakened as soon as any of them. It wasn’t likely that he would have deliberately chosen to remain in the house. He put a leg across the sill and again hesitated. Suppose Standart was still in the room? He might be! He might have become panic-stricken and fainted, just as Mrs. Fair had done! Monty drew his foot back and once more wound the towel across his mouth. Then he dropped to his hands and knees, for the smoke was too thick now for human endurance to stand. As quickly as he could he made his way to the door, his hand groping about in the darkness. Nothing rewarded him. He groped back to the alcove, choking, sputtering, his lungs aching, and then across the room to his own bed. A sudden crash of falling timbers and an accompanying flare of crimson light brought him to his feet. But it was only a wall below, and he dropped to his knees again. His hand touched the doorsill and curiosity made him reach up and turn the knob, and as he did so the thought came to him that here was conclusive evidence that Standart had gone out, for he remembered leaving the door open after he had awakened him. His search had been idle, after all. And just then, as the latch was released, the door swung inward against him as though of its own volition and something toppled across the sill.