Homeburg Memories | Page 9

that
water--" "Turn on that water--" "Turn on that water!!--" "Jones, go
down and tell that wooden Indian to turn on that water." "Hold that
water, you--" "Hold that water!" "Turn her on, I say." "Turn her--"
"Wow--turn that nozzle the other way--"
And then the water comes with a mighty rush, yanking the nozzlemen
this way and that and sweeping firemen and common citizens aside as
if they were mere straws.
As a rule, this is the climax, and the end comes rapidly. By this time
Brown, who had put the fire out with a few pails of water before the
alarm sounded, has persuaded the department to call off its hose, the
barn being full of valuable hay. So there isn't anything to do. The water
is turned off. Gibb Ogle explains to the one hundred and eleventh knot
of people how he was going past the place when he saw the tongue of
flame, and every one disperses after a pleasant social time.

Everybody is tolerably well satisfied except the hook-and-ladder gang,
which, as usual, is skunked again--never got a ladder out. A couple of
the axmen had a little fun with a rear window, but otherwise the affair
is a flat failure. They go back sullenly, but are comforted when the roll
is called, when each member who was present draws a dollar from the
city treasury. As usual, Pete Sundbloom is late, and tries to edge in to
roll-call, though he was a mile away from peril, but he can't make it
stick and gets the hoarse hoot when his little game is discovered.
I want to ask you--isn't that a pleasant interruption on a dead day? It
makes life worth living, and I really wonder that there isn't more
incendiarism in small towns throughout the United States.
Of course all the alarms aren't fizzles. Sometimes we have a real fire,
and then the scene defies description. When a fair-sized house burns
down, Chief Dobbs is so hoarse that he can't talk for a week, and when
the row of wooden stores on the south side went up in flames a few
years ago, the old chief, Patrick McQuinn, burst a blood-vessel and had
to retire, the doctor having warned him that he must never use a
speaking-trumpet again.
I was away at the time, but they tell me that was a grand fire for the
hook-and-ladder boys. They were right in the middle of it, and every
ladder in the truck was out. There was some trouble over the fact that
the big extension ladder was too tall for the buildings, and when Art
Simms had climbed to the top, he managed to fall fifteen feet to the
roof of the furniture-store, bruising himself badly. But, on the whole,
great good was done, and the second story workers were kings that day.
When the hotel caught, and the hook-and-ladder gang got into it, the
way the upper windows belched mattresses, mirrors, toilet-sets,
pictures and beds was unbelievable. Almost everything in the building
was saved, and some of it was successfully repaired afterward.
The axmen had their innings that day, too. It was a great sight to see
Andy Lowes leap nimbly up the ladder and poke in window after
window with his spiked ax, stepping backward now and then into
nozzleman Jones's face in order to view the effect. The axmen got glory
enough to last for years, and it was an axman who put out the last scrap

of fire. Frank Sundell was the hero. He was sitting on the ridge-pole of
Emerson's restaurant when he noticed a few blazing spots on the
shingle roof beneath him. He might have called the hose department;
but, as I have said, there is a good deal of rivalry between the two, and,
besides, Sundell had had a slow time that day, Lowes doing most of the
display work. So Frank reached cautiously down with his trusty ax, cut
out a blazing section of shingles, and tossed it to the ground. The crowd
cheered, and he was so encouraged that he cut out the rest of the hot
spots and put out the fire single-handed. Sundell is one of our very best
firemen and stands in line for a nozzleman's position some day.
Of course a small-town fire department doesn't get as much practice in
twisting the fire-fiend's tail as a city fire company; but our boys have a
mighty good record, and we're proud of them. Since we've had
water-works, and the department hasn't had to depend on some cistern
which always went dry just at a critical moment, there hasn't been a
conflagration in Homeburg big enough to get into the city papers. The
boys may be a little overzealous now and then, but they are