Everybody began to wonder what would happen if a house should blaze up. The whole city would go. Who would come to the rescue of a burning house in such weather? And with what water would the flames be fought? Everybody listened for the new firebell that had been hung in the City Hall cupola and had sent its brazen yelps across the sky so often, but was ominously silent of late as if saving its horrific throat for some Doomsday clangor.
Hitherto, membership in certain of the fire companies had been cherished as a proof of social triumph. There were plebeian gangs made up of mechanics and laborers, and the Bowery b’hoys were a byword of uncouth deviltry.
But RoBards had been accepted into one of the most select fire clubs with a silver plated engine. He kept his boots, trumpet, and helmet in a basket under his bed, so that there was never any delay in his response to the bell. He was so often the first to arrive that they gave him the key, and in the longest run he always carried more than his share of the weight in the footrace. But now he wished that he had never joined the company.
Christmas drew near and Patty wore herself out in the shops and spent her time at home in the manufacture of gifts with her own hands. They were very apt hands at anything pretty and useless. She was going to have a Christmas tree, too, a recent affectation borrowed from the Hessian soldiers who had remained in the country after the Revolution.
The evening of the sixteenth of December was unbearably chill. The fire itself seemed to be freezing red. The thermometer outside the house dropped down to ten below zero. The servants refused to go to the corner for water and Patty was frightened into staying home from a ball she was invited to.
That was the ultimate proof of terror. It was one of the times when the outer world was so cruel that just to sit within doors by a warm fire was a festival of luxury; just to have a fire to sit by was wealth enough.
Patty was so nearly congealed that she climbed into her husband’s lap and gathered his arms about her like the ends of a shawl. It had been a long while since she had paid his bosom such a visit and he was grateful for the cold.
And then the great bell spoke in the City Hall tower—spoke one huge resounding awful word, “Fire!” before it broke into a baying as of infernal hounds.
When RoBards started to evict Patty from his lap she gasped: “You’re not going out on such a night?” RoBards groaned: “I’ve got to!” He set her aside and ran upstairs for the basket of armor, and Patty followed him wailing with pity.
“Don’t go, darling!” she pleaded. “You can tell them to-morrow that you were sick. You’ll die if you go out in this hideous cold, and then what will become of me? Of us? Of our babies?”