"I don't see," said Ned, after Monkey had finished one of these thrilling narratives, "what Father means by never letting us run to a fire. How does he suppose he's going to make men of us, if we never begin to do anything manly?"
"Perhaps he doesn't think it is especially manly," said Phaeton.
"Not manly!" exclaimed Ned, in astonishment. "I should like to know what's more manly than to take the tongue of Big Six when there's a tremendous fire and they jump her all the way down State street. Or to stand on the engine and yell at the men, when Torrent Two is trying to wash her. Why, sometimes the foreman gets so excited that he batters his trumpet all to pieces, pounding on the brakes, to cheer his men."
"Knocking trumpets to pieces is very manly, of course," said Phaeton, smiling. "I didn't mean to say Father wouldn't consider it manly to be a fireman. What I should have said was, that perhaps he thought there were other ways to become manly. I should like to run to a fire once in a while; not for the sake of manliness, but to see the fun."
The more Ned thought about it, the more it seemed to him it was a continuous wrong. At last he spoke to his father about it, and set forth so powerfully the danger of growing up without becoming manly, that Mr. Rogers laughingly told the boys they might run to the very next fire.
The next thing was to count me in. The only difficulty to be overcome in my case was sleepiness. We canvassed many plans. Ned suggested a pistol fastened to the side of my window, with a string tied to the trigger and reaching to the ground, so that he or Phaeton could pull it on their way to the fire. The serious objection to this was that a shower would prevent the pistol from going off. It was also suggested that I have a bell, or tie the cord to a chair or something that could be pulled over and make a racket.
"The objection to all those things is," said Phaeton, "that they will disturb the whole family. Now, if you would make a rope-ladder, and hang it out of your window every night, one of us could climb up quietly, and speak to you. Then you could get out at the window and come down the ladder, instead of going through the house and waking up the people."
This suggestion struck us with great force; it doubled the anticipated romance. Under instructions from Phaeton, Ned and I made the ladder. In the store-room we found a bed-cord, which answered well for the sides. The rungs must be made of wood, and we had considerable difficulty in finding anything suitable. Any wood that we could have cut would be so soft that the rungs, to be strong enough, must have been very bulky. This was an objection, as I was to roll up the ladder in the day-time, and hide it under my bed. At last, Ned came over to tell me he had found just the thing, and took me to the attic of their house to see.
"There," said he, pointing to half a dozen ancient-looking chairs in a cobwebbed corner. "That is exactly what we want. The rounds of those old chairs are as tough as iron."
"Whose chairs are they?" said I.