Phaeton Rogers: A Novel of Boy Life

by Rossiter Johnson

"Good gracious!" said Phaeton. "There's no use in trying to dip up that spilled milk."

In those days there was an excitement and pleasure enjoyed by many boys, which was denied to Phaeton, Ned, and me. This was the privilege of running to fires. Nearly all large fires occurred in the night, and Mr. Rogers would not permit his boys to turn out from their warm beds and run at breathless speed to the other side of the town to see a building burned. So they had to lie still and possess their souls in impatience while they heard the clanging of the bells and the rattling of the engine, and perhaps saw through their window the lurid reflection on the midnight sky. There was no need for my parents to forbid me, since none of these things ever woke me.

Running to fires, at least in cities, is now a thing of the past. The alarm is communicated silently by telegraph to the various engine-houses, a team is instantly harnessed to the engine, and with two or three men it is driven to the fire, which is often extinguished without the inhabitants of the next street knowing that there has been a fire at all.

At the time of this story, the steam fire-engine had not been invented, and there were no paid fire departments. The hand-engine had a long pole on each side, called a brake, fastened to a frame that worked up and down like a pump-handle. When the brake on one side was down, that on the other was up. The brakes were long enough for nearly twenty men to stand in a row on each side and work them. No horses were used, but there was a long double rope, called a drag-rope, by which the men themselves drew the engine from its house to the fire. They always ran at full speed, and the two men who held the tongue, like the tongue of a wagon, had to be almost as strong as horses, to control and guide it as it went bumping over the pavement.

Each engine had a number and a name, and there was an organized company, of from forty to seventy men, who had it in charge, managed it at fires, drew it out on parade-days, took pride in it, and bragged about it.

The partiality of the firemen for their own engine and company was as nothing in comparison with that of the boys. Every boy in town had a violent affection for some one company, to the exclusion of all others. It might be because his father or his cousin belonged to that company, or because he thought it had the handsomest uniform (for no two companies were uniformed alike), or because it was first on the ground when his uncle's store was on fire, or because he thought it was the company destined to "wash" all others. Sometimes there would be no discoverable reason for his choice; yet the boy would be just as strong in his partisanship, and often his highest ambition would be to be able to run with the hose-cart of his favorite company. The hose was carried wound on a reel, trundled on two light wheels, which was managed by half a dozen boys, fifteen or sixteen years of age.

When a fire broke out, the bells of all the churches were rung; first slowly, striking one, two, three, four, etc., according to which district of the town the fire was in, and then clanging away with rapid strokes. Thus the whole town was alarmed, and a great many people besides the firemen ran to every fire. Firemen jumped from their beds at the first tap of a bell; or, if it was in the day-time, they instantly threw down their tools, left their work, and ran.

There was an intense rivalry as to which engine should first get to the fire, and which should pour the most effective stream of water upon it. But the highest pitch of excitement was reached when there was an opportunity to "wash." If the fire was too far from the water-supply to be reached through the hose of a single engine, one engine would be stationed at the side of the river or canal, or wherever the water was taken from, to pump it up and send it as far as it could through its hose, there discharging into the box of another engine, which, in turn, forced it another distance, through its own hose. If the first engine could send the water along faster than the second could dispose of it, the result would be that in a few minutes the box of the second would be overflowed, and she was then said to be "washed," which was considered a great triumph for the company that had washed her.

This sort of rivalry caused the firemen to do their utmost, and they did not always confine themselves to fair means. Sometimes, when an engine was in danger of being washed, some member of the company would follow the line of the other company's hose till he came to where it passed through a dark place, and then, whipping out his pocket-knife, would cut it open and run away. When there were not enough members of a company present to man the brakes, or when they were tired out, the foreman had the right to select men from among the bystanders, and compel them to take hold.

Monkey Roe was a born fireman. He never failed to hear the first tap of the bell, about ninety seconds after which he dropped from the casement of his window to the roof of the kitchen, thence to the roof of the back piazza, slid down a pillar, and was off for the fire, generally following in the wake of Red Rover Three, which was the company he sided with. It was entertaining to hear him relate his exciting adventures; but it was also somewhat exasperating.