AUGUST 16: The Fire
“Quack, quack, quack, help, help, help,” shrieked and cackled more than one hundred thousand ducks at the same time.
“Quack, quack, help, help, help,” they kept on cackling.
“There must be some trouble over at the duck farm,” said a man who was a fireman and who was sitting outside the firehouse in a town some distance away when he heard this quacking. He told another fireman that there surely must be some trouble at the duck farm.
“I think,” said the fireman, “I will get out my spy-glass and see what I can make out.”
For the quacking kept up and still it sounded very queer to the firemen.
“Don’t you suppose,” said the second fireman, “that one of the ducks has been hurt and the others are quacking in sympathy?”
“I don’t believe,” said the first fireman, “that one hundred thousand ducks would be so sympathetic at the same time. And they wouldn’t make so much noise. I fear something has happened over there.”
And he looked through his spy-glass in the direction of the duck farm.
“There. I see something like smoke,” he said. “Yes, I’m sure I see something like smoke.”
“Near the duck farm?” said the other fireman, getting up, and adding: “We’d better send out the alarm and get started.”
“It’s away from the farm that I see the smoke,” said the first fireman, “but maybe the ducks are afraid it will reach them. It’s one of those forest fires I think.”
So an alarm was sent out in the town and the firemen rushed to the firehouse and got on their fire-clothes as they hurried away on the fire-engine.
How the horses did run! Still the ducks were quacking. The horses galloped, the men held on, and the ones who guided the fire horses drove as they had never driven before.
“It’s a fire!” shouted the people on the farm. “A terrible forest fire! Oh, send for the firemen and the engines! Oh, send for help, help, help.” And they telephoned wildly to the town.
But just at that moment, when the people on the farm felt that help could not come in time to save them and the hundred thousand ducks, along dashed the fire-engines and the brave firemen drawn by the splendid horses.
They rushed past the duck farm to the forest fire which was coming steadily nearer.
“Come men, come people,” they shouted as they went by. And every one went rushing to help the firemen.
The dreadful forest fire was stopped just before it reached the duck farm, and the ducks cackled softly and happily, though still they were nervous from all they had been through: “We are safe, quack, quack, we are safe.”
“How did you ever get here before we telephoned?” asked the people on the farm.
“Your ducks sent us the alarm,” replied one of the firemen.