"Take those boxes off," she said to the drayman.
"Blast my eyes if I'm going to be lifting boxes off and on here all night for any darned twenty-five dollars that ever was paid. Hurry your things on here, or, by Godfrey! I'll dump 'em and be off. Blast me if I'll wait here a second beyond five minutes."
Just then the doctor reappeared, and began to turn over the contents of a sheet before tying it. "Oh, my dear," he cried in a tone of mingled remonstrance and despair, "we can't spare room for these worthless traps;" and he pitched out a pair of vases, two pin-cushions, a dustpan, a sieve, a kitchen apron, a statuette of Psyche, a pair of plaster medallions, Our Mutual Friend in paper cover, a pink tarletan dress, a dirty tablecloth, an ice pitcher, a flat-iron, a mosquito-bar, a hoop-skirt, a backgammon-board and a bottle of hair restorative.
"They're worth a thousand times more than those old rocks and things you've loaded up the dray with," Mrs. Lively maintained.
At last the truck moved off, followed by Dr. Lively, shouting to his wife to come on and not lose sight of him. Mrs. Lively seized a carpet-bag in which she had packed her silver and jewelry, and rushed into the street, screaming to Napoleon to follow and not lose sight of her. Napoleon hung his basket of provisions on his arm and stuck his hat on his head. Then he went to the pantry and poked up cookies through a lift between his hat and forehead, until there was no vacant space remaining in the top of his hat. Then he crammed a cake in his mouth, filled his pockets and both hands, and left the rest to their doom.
The wind, which for a time had blown steadily to the north-east, was now seemingly bewildered. At times there would be a dead calm, as though the fierce gale had tired itself out; then it would sweep roaring down a street with the force of a hurricane, and go shrieking through an alley as though sucked through a tube; again, it seemed to strike from every quarter of the compass, while anon a vast whirlwind was formed, swirling and circling till one half expected to see the glowing masses of masonry lifted and whirled like autumn leaves.
On went our party as fast as the press would permit. One bundle after another, as it took fire from falling brands, was pitched off the truck and left to burn out on the pavement; and to these bundle-pitchings Mrs. Lively kept up a running accompaniment of groans and ejaculations. When they had reached the corner of Washington and La Salle, the truckman signified his intention of throwing off his load.
"They'll be safe here," he said. Dr. Lively, too, thought this, for he did not believe that the flames could pass the double row of fireproof buildings on La Salle street and others in the neighborhood. But as he was bound for a friend's house across the river, on the North Side, he would of course have preferred to take his goods with him, even if there had been no danger from pillagers. But no arguments or persuasions, even when offered in the shape of the gentleman's last five-dollar bill, could induce the drayman to cross the river. He dumped on the sidewalk all that remained of the Livelies' earthly possessions, and disappeared in the press.
Again and again, but all in vain, Dr. Lively offered his forlorn hope, his one greenback, to procure the transportation of his goods across the river. But that five-dollar bill was so scorned and snubbed by the ascendent truckmen that the doctor found himself smiling at his conceit that the poor, despised thing, when returned to his purse, went sneakingly into the farthest and deepest corner.
As he could not leave his goods, it was decided that Mrs. Lively and Napoleon should cross the river without him. He sat down on Mrs. Lively's big Saratoga trunk to await developments. He did not have to wait long. The double row of fireproofs, which was to have held the fire at bay, was attacked and went down; then the Chamber of Commerce melted away; shortly after the court-house was assailed. Dr. Lively gave up his trunks and bundles as lost, and as too insignificant, in that wild havoc, to be worth a sigh. He did feel a desire, however, for a clean shirt in which to face the heavens. Then, too, he wanted to bring something through the fire—to preserve something which would serve as a memento of his ante-igneous life. The best thing in the way of a relic which he could secure was a case of sea-weeds mounted on cards. He made a hasty bundle of these and a few articles of underwear, tucked it under his arm, and then looked about him, considering which way he should go. The wind had again risen to a hurricane. All around him was a storm of fire-brands, as though the flakes in a snow-storm had been turned to flame. Great sheets of blazing felt-roofing were driving overhead. Everywhere timbers and masonry were falling: walls a half square in length came down with the thunder's crash, and in such quick succession that the noise ceased to be noticed. Thousands of frantic people were pushing wildly in every direction. The crowds seemed bewildered, lost, frenzied. And what wonder? The world seemed to be burning up, the heavens to be melting: a star looked like a speck of blood, so that the whole canopy of heaven when visible seemed blood-spattered.