HOW WE FOUGHT THE FIRE.
IV.
Ah me! the way that they rummaged round!
Ah me! the startling things they found!
No one with a fair idea of space
Would ever have thought that in one place
Were half the things that, with a shout,
These neighborly burglars hustled out.
Came articles that the Deacon's wives
Had all been gathering half their lives;
Came furniture such as one might see
Didn't grow in the trunk of every tree;
A tall clock, centuries old, 'twas said,
Leaped out of a window, heels o'er head;
A veteran chair, in which, when new,
George Washington sat for a minute or two;
A bedstead strong, as if in its lap
Old Time might take his terminal nap;
Dishes, that in meals long agone
The Deacon's fathers had eaten on;
Clothes, made of every cut and hue,
That couldn't remember when they were new;
A mirror, scathless many a day
('Twas promptly smashed in the regular way);
Old shoes enough, if properly thrown,
To bring good luck to all creatures known;
And children thirteen, more or less,
In varying plenitude of dress.
And that was the sight
We had that night,
When roused, the terrible foe to fight,
Which blazed aloft to a moderate height,
And turned the cheeks of the timid white,
Including Deacon Tompkins.
V.
Lo! where the engines, reeking hot,
Dashed up to the interesting spot:
Came Number Two, "The City's Hope,"
Propelled by a line of men and rope;
And after them, on a spiteful run,
"The Ocean Billows," or Number One.
And soon the two, induced to "play"
By a hundred hands, were working away,
Until, to the Deacon's flustered sight,
As he danced about in his robe of white,
It seemed as if, by the hand of Fate,
House-cleaning day were some two years late,
And with complete though late success,
Had just arrived by the night express.
The "Ocean Billows" were at high tide,
And flung their spray upon every side;
The "City's Hope" were in perfect trim,
Preventing aught like an interim;
And a "Hook-and-Ladder Company" came,
With hooks and ropes and a long hard name,
And with an iconoclastic frown
Were about to pull the whole thing down,
When some one raised the assuring shout,
"It's only the chimney a-burnin' out!"
Whereat, with a sense of injured trust,
The crowd went home in complete disgust.
Scarce one of those who, with joyous shout,
Assisted the Deacon in moving out,
Refrained from the homeward-flowing din,
To help the Deacon at moving in.
And that was the plight
In which, that night,
They left the Deacon, clad in white,
Who felt he was hardly treated right,
And used some words, in the flickering light,
Not orthodox in their purport quite—
Poor, put-out Deacon Tompkins!
[From Arthur Selwyn's Note-book.]
Let me a moment indite
Scenes that I witnessed one night: