It was a little better when she got down, although the smoke was thick up by the floor beams. Sally glanced in the direction of the furnace; and she saw, through the smoke, a dull red glow, with little licks of flame running up from it, now and then. The man had forgotten the furnace and had left it drawing. That pipe was perilously near the beams.
"The idiot!" Sally exclaimed. And she held her breath again while she ran up the cellar stairs.
She was angry with herself because her hands trembled as she lighted the gas in the kitchen and found the lantern and lighted it. The slight trembling of her hands did not matter so much in filling a pitcher with water and by the time the pitcher was full her hands were steady enough. She ran down cellar again, the lantern in one hand and the pitcher in the other; and she shut the drafts in the furnace as far as she could. She heard the flame roaring in the pipe and the damper was red-hot.
"Oh, dear!" she said, under her breath. "If there was only something to take hold of it with! And the beams are all afire. Well,—"
She threw the water from her pitcher upon the beams in little dashes.
"Oh, dear!" she said again. "I can't do it."
A quiet voice spoke behind her. "Better give it up, Sally, and rouse the people."
Sally was too intent upon her purpose to be startled. "Oh, Uncle John!" she cried. "You are a very present help in trouble. We could put it out if this was all, but I'm afraid it has already got up between the walls."
"Come up, then," Uncle John spoke calmly and without haste. "Never mind the lantern. I will rouse Patty and Doctor Sanderson and you get at Henrietta and your mother and the servants. Don't send Patty to the servants," he added, with a smile. "I will send in the alarm."
Mr. Hazen had forgotten Charlie. Sally ran upstairs. There was still a light showing under Henrietta's door and Sally went in.