"Mother, what you say is all true and right in principle. It is wrong to cherish anger and to seek vengeance, but that isn't my case. I don't hate Hen Little: I pity his meanness and his cowardice. I am not seeking vengeance, but justice, and I have a right to that. If I were to give up thrashing him, I should look at myself with contempt. I shall punish him, not because I hate him—for I don't—but because I must assert my own manhood."
The widow was perplexed by this view of the case. She could not quite believe it was right, and yet she could not conscientiously say it was wrong.
"Well, my son," she replied, "I fear you are wrong; but you may be right. At any rate, I can not take the responsibility of urging you to submit to anything that you feel to be a degradation. Feeling as you do, you must decide the matter for yourself."
"I have decided it," said Vic; "and the decision is that I must thrash Hen Little."
Vic and his mother were sitting in the doorway during this conversation. Vic had finished his lessons, and the hour was late, but the night was so pleasant that the pair sat there chatting long after their usual bed-time. Just as Vic ended the discussion with the remark quoted above, the fire-bells rang out with that eager, noisy, frightened clangor which fire-bells have only in small cities where a fire calls the whole population forth. Vic seized his hat and ran, guided by the glare which already appeared at the opposite end of the town.
The burning house was one of the largest in the little city, a building three stories in height; and before the excited volunteer fire companies could get a stream of water running, the fire was evidently beyond their control. It had broken out in the lower story, near the stairway; and finding that efforts to stay its course were idle, the firemen and spectators did little more than place ladders at a second-story window for the escape of the family, who had been sleeping. When all were out, there was nothing to do but to stand and watch the bonfire, as no other house was near enough to be in danger.
Presently a head appeared at one of the windows of the third story, and a cry for help was heard. A shudder ran through the crowd, for there was no help to be given. The fire had burned both the stairways, and there was no ladder long enough to reach beyond the second story. Some of the spectators stood stupefied; others ran about aimlessly, trying to do something, but having no idea what.
Meantime the boy at the window cried aloud and piteously for help. His father and mother were not less frantic than he. They had believed that all the family were safely out, supposing that Hen—for it was Hen Little—had passed down one flight from his third-story bedroom, and had escaped with the rest. Seeing him now at the window, they lost their wits, and cried to him to leap out, without thinking that to do so would be instant death to him. Yet there was apparently nothing to be done, and the situation was appalling. The crowd shuddered to think that the boy, whom they all knew, must be burned to death there in their sight.
Presently a cry arose at the rear of the crowd, and Vic Whitney came running with all his might, shouting:
"Don't jump, Hen! Stay where you are! Don't jump out!"