The Jamesons | Page 2

fire-bell began to ring.
Then I ran across the street to Mrs. Peter Jones' gate, and Amelia Powers came hurrying out of her yard.
"Where is it? Oh, where is it?" said she, and Candace put her head out of the window and called out, "Where is it? Is it near here?"
We all sniffed for smoke and strained our eyes for a red fire glare on the horizon, but we could neither smell nor see anything unusual.
Pretty soon we heard the fire-engine coming, and Amelia Powers cried out: "Oh, it's going to Mrs. Liscom's! It's her house! It's Mrs. Liscom's house!"
Candace Powers put her head farther out of the window, and screamed in a queer voice that echoed like a parrot's, "Oh, 'Melia! 'Melia! it's Mrs. Liscom's, it's Mrs. Liscom's, and the wind's this way! Come, quick, and help me get out the best feather bed, and the counterpane that mother knit! Quick! Quick!"
Amelia had to run in and quiet Candace, who was very apt to have a bad spell when she was over-excited, and the rest of us started for the fire.
As we hurried down the street I asked Mrs. Jones how she had known there was a fire in the first place, for I supposed that was why she had run out to her front door and looked down the street. Then I learned about the city boarders. She and Amelia, from the way they faced at their sitting-room windows, had seen the Grover stage-coach stop at Mrs. Liscom's, and had run out to see the boarders alight. Mrs. Jones said there were five of them--the mother, grandmother, two daughters, and a son.
I said that I did not know Mrs. Liscom was going to take boarders; I was very much surprised.
"I suppose she thought she would earn some money and have some extra things," said Mrs. Jones.
"It must have been that," said Mrs. Ketchum, panting--she was almost out of breath--"for, of course, the Liscoms don't need the money."
I laughed and said I thought not. I felt a little pride about it, because Mrs. Liscom was a second cousin of my husband, and he used to think a great deal of her.
"They must own that nice place clear, if it ain't going to burn to the ground, and have something in the bank besides," assented Mrs. Peter Jones.
Ever so many people were running down the street with us, and the air seemed full of that brazen clang of the fire-bell; still we could not see any fire, nor even smell any smoke, until we got to the head of the lane where the Liscom house stands a few rods from the main street.
The lane was about choked up with the fire-engine, the hose-cart, the fire department in their red shirts, and, I should think, half the village. We climbed over the stone wall into Mrs. Liscom's oat-field; it was hard work for Mrs. Ketchum, but Mrs. Jones and I pushed and Adeline pulled, and then we ran along close to the wall toward the house. We certainly began to smell smoke, though we still could not see any fire. The firemen were racing in and out of the house, bringing out the furniture, as were some of the village boys, and the engine was playing upon the south end, where the kitchen is.
Mrs. Peter Jones, who is very small and alert, said suddenly that it looked to her as if the smoke were coming out of the kitchen chimney, but Mrs. Ketchum said of course it was on fire inside in the woodwork. "Oh, only to think of Mrs. Liscom's nice house being all burned up, and what a dreadful reception for those boarders!" she groaned out.
I never saw such a hubbub, and apparently over nothing at all, as there was. There was a steady yell of fire from a crowd of boys who seemed to enjoy it; the water was swishing, the firemen's arms were pumping in unison, and everybody generally running in aimless circles like a swarm of ants. Then we saw the boarders coming out. "Oh, the house must be all in a light blaze inside!" groaned Mrs. Ketchum.
There were five of the boarders. The mother, a large, fair woman with a long, massive face, her reddish hair crinkling and curling around it in a sort of ivy-tendril fashion, came first. Her two daughters, in blue gowns, with pretty, agitated faces, followed; then the young son, fairly teetering with excitement; then the grandmother, a little, tremulous old lady in an auburn wig.
The woman at the head carried a bucket, and what should she do but form her family into a line toward the well at the north side of the house where we were!
Of course, the family did not nearly reach to the well, and she beckoned to