Fighting the Fire.
"Fire! Fire! Fire!" shouted Jack, and every child of the Ogden family, except Mary, echoed with such voice as belonged to each.
Through the wide gate of the hotel barn-yard dashed the blacksmith and his son, with their ladder, at the moment when Mrs. Livermore came out at the kitchen door, wiping a plate. All the other inmates of the hotel were gathered around the long table in the dining-hall, and they were too busy with pie and different kinds of pudding, to notice anything outdoors.
"Where is the fire, Mr. Ogden?" she said, in a fatigued tone.
"The fire's on your roof, close to the chimney," said the blacksmith. "May be we can put it out, if we're quick about it. Call everybody to hand up water."
Up went a pair of hands, and out came a great scream. Another shrill scream and another, followed in quick succession, and the plate she had held, fell and was shivered into fragments on the stone door-step.
"Foi-re! Foi-re! Foi-re-re-re!" yelled the hotel cook. "The house is a-bur-rnin'! Wa-ter! Waw-aw-ter!"
The doors to passage-ways of the hotel were open, and in a second more her cry was taken up by voices that sent the substance of it ringing through the dining-hall.
Plates fell from the hands of waiters, coffee-cups were upset, chairs were overturned, all manner of voices caught up the alarm.