A GUSH OF WATER FOLLOWED, BURYING THE SLED AND WASHING THE DOGS FROM THEIR FEET—page 69From the drawing by George Giguère
A GUSH OF WATER FOLLOWED, BURYING THE SLED AND WASHING THE DOGS FROM THEIR FEET
—page 69
From the drawing by George Giguère
The way of it was this. After passing the winter at his father’s claim on Mazy May, he came downto an island on the Yukon and went into camp. This was late in the spring, just before the breaking of the ice on the river. It was quite warm, and the days were growing marvelously long. Only the night before, when he was talking with Chilkoot Jim, the daylight had not faded and sent him off to bed till after ten o’clock. Even Chilkoot Jim, an Indian boy who was about Walt’s own age, was surprised at the rapidity with which summer was coming on. The snow had melted from all the southern hillsides and the level surfaces of the flats and islands; everywhere could be heard the trickling of water and the song of hidden rivulets; but somehow, under its three-foot ice-sheet, the Yukon delayed to heave its great length of three thousand miles and shake off the frosty fetters which bound it.
But it was evident that the time was fast approaching when it would again run free. Great fissures were splitting the ice in all directions, while the water was beginning to flood through them and over the top. On this morning a frightful rumbling brought the two boys hurriedly from their blankets. Standing on the bank, they soon discovered the cause. The Stewart River had broken loose and reared a great ice barrier, where it entered the Yukon, barely a mile above their island. While a great deal of the Stewart ice had been thus piled up, the remainder was now flowing under the Yukon ice, pounding and thumping at the solid surface above it as it passed onward toward the sea.
“To-day um break um,” Chilkoot Jim said, nodding his head. “Sure!”
“And then maybe two days for the ice to passby,” Walt added, “and you and I’ll be starting for Dawson. It’s only seventy miles, and if the current runs five miles an hour and we paddle three, we ought to make it inside of ten hours. What do you think?”
“Sure!” Chilkoot Jim did not know much English, and this favorite word of his was made to do duty on all occasions.
After breakfast the boys got out the Peterborough canoe from its winter cache. It was an admirable sample of the boat-builder’s skill, an imported article brought from the natural home of the canoe—Canada. It had been packed over the Chilkoot Pass, two years before, on a man’s back, and had then carried the first mail in six months into the Klondike. Walt, who happened to be in Dawson at the time, had bought it for three hundred dollars’ worth of dust which he had mined on the Mazy May.
It had been a revelation, both to him and to Chilkoot Jim, for up to its advent they had been used to no other craft than the flimsy birch-bark canoes of the Indians and the rude poling-boats of the whites. Jim, in fact, spent many a happy half-hour in silent admiration of its perfect lines.
“Um good. Sure!” Jim lifted his gaze from the dainty craft, expressing his delight in the same terms for the thousandth time. But glancing over Walt’s shoulder, he saw something on the river which startled him. “Look! See!” he cried.
A man had been racing a dog-team across the slushy surface for the shore, and had been cut off by the rising flood. As Walt whirled round to see,the ice behind the man burst into violent commotion, splitting and smashing into fragments which bobbed up and down and turned turtle like so many corks.
A gush of water followed, burying the sled and washing the dogs from their feet. Tangled in their harness and securely fastened to the heavy sled, they must drown in a few minutes unless rescued by the man. Bravely his manhood answered.
Floundering about with the drowning animals, nearly hip-deep in the icy flood, he cut and slashed with his sheath-knife at the traces. One by one the dogs struck out for shore, the first reaching safety ere the last was released. Then the master, abandoning the sled, followed them. It was a struggle in which little help could be given, and Walt and Chilkoot Jim could only, at the last, grasp his hands and drag him, half-fainting, up the bank.
First he sat down till he had recovered his breath; next he knocked the water from his ears like a boy who has just been swimming; and after that he whistled his dogs together to see whether they had all escaped. These things done, he turned his attention to the lads.
“I’m Muso,” he said, “Pete Muso, and I’m looking for Charley Drake. His partner is dying down at Dawson, and they want him to come at once, as soon as the river breaks. He’s got a cabin on this island, hasn’t he?”
“Yes,” Walt answered, “but he’s over on the other side of the river, with a couple of other men, getting out a raft of logs for a grub-stake.”
The stranger’s disappointment was great. Exhaustedby his weary journey, just escaped from sudden death, overcome by all he had undergone in carrying the message which was now useless, he looked dazed. The tears welled into his eyes, and his voice was choked with sobs as he repeated, aimlessly, “But his partner’s dying. It’s his partner, you know, and he wants to see him before he dies.”
Walt and Jim knew that nothing could be done, and as aimlessly looked out on the hopeless river. No man could venture on it and live. On the other bank, and several miles up-stream, a thin column of smoke wavered to the sky. Charley Drake was cooking his dinner there; seventy miles below, his partner lay dying; yet no word of it could be sent.
But even as they looked, a change came over the river. There was a muffled rending and tearing, and, as if by magic, the surface water disappeared, while the great ice-sheet, reaching from shore to shore, and broken into all manner and sizes of cakes, floated silently up toward them. The ice which had been pounding along underneath had evidently grounded at some point lower down, and was now backing up the water like a mill-dam. This had broken the ice-sheet from the land and lifted it on top of the rising water.
“Um break um very quick,” Chilkoot Jim said.
“Then here goes!” Muso cried, at the same time beginning to strip his wet clothes.
The Indian boy laughed. “Mebbe you get um in middle, mebbe not. All the same, the trail um go down-stream, and you go, too. Sure!” He glanced at Walt, that he might back him up in preventing this insane attempt.
“You’re not going to try and make it across?” Walt queried.
Muso nodded his head, sat down, and proceeded to unlace his moccasins.
“But you mustn’t!” Walt protested. “It’s certain death. The river’ll break before you get half-way, and then what good’ll your message be?”
But the stranger doggedly went on undressing, muttering in an undertone, “I want Charley Drake! Don’t you understand? It’s his partner, dying.”
“Um sick man. Bimeby—” The Indian boy put a finger to his forehead and whirled his hand in quick circles, thus indicating the approach of brain fever. “Um work too hard, and um think too much, all the time think about sick man at Dawson. Very quick um head go round—so.” And he feigned the bodily dizziness which is caused by a disordered brain.
By this time, undressed as if for a swim, Muso rose to his feet and started for the bank. Walt stepped in front, barring the way. He shot a glance at his comrade. Jim nodded that he understood and would stand by.
“Get out of my way, boy!” Muso commanded, roughly, trying to thrust him aside.
But Walt closed in, and with the aid of Jim succeeded in tripping him upon his back. He struggled weakly for a few moments, but was too wearied by his long journey to cope successfully with the two boys whose muscles were healthy and trail-hardened.
“Pack um into camp, roll um in plenty blanket, and I fix um good,” Jim advised.
This was quickly accomplished, and the sufferer made as comfortable as possible. After he had been attended to, and Jim had utilized the medical lore picked up in the camps of his own people, they fed the stranger’s dogs and cooked dinner. They said very little to each other, but each boy was thinking hard, and when they went out into the sunshine a few minutes later, their minds were intent on the same project.
The river had now risen twenty feet, the ice rubbing softly against the top of the bank. All noise had ceased. Countless millions of tons of ice and water were silently waiting the supreme moment, when all bonds would be broken and the mad rush to the sea would begin. Suddenly, without the slightest apparent effort, everything began to move down-stream. The jam had broken.
Slowly at first but faster and faster the frozen sea dashed past. The noise returned again, and the air trembled to a mighty churning and grinding. Huge blocks of ice were shot into the air by the pressure; others butted wildly into the bank; still others, swinging and pivoting, reached inshore and swept rows of pines away as easily as if they were so many matches.
In awe-stricken silence the boys watched the magnificent spectacle, and it was not until the ice had slackened its speed and fallen to its old level that Walt cried, “Look, Jim! Look at the trail going by!”
And in truth it was the trail going by—the trailupon which they had camped and traveled during all the preceding winter. Next winter they would journey with dogs and sleds over the same ground, but not on the same trail. That trail, the old trail, was passing away before their eyes.
Looking up-stream, they saw open water. No more ice was coming down, although vast quantities of it still remained on the upper reaches, jammed somewhere amid the maze of islands which covered the Yukon’s breast. As a matter of fact, there were several jams yet to break, one after another, and to send down as many ice-runs. The next might come along in a few minutes; it might delay for hours. Perhaps there would be time to paddle across. Walt looked questioningly at his comrade.
“Sure!” Jim remarked, and without another word they carried the canoe down the bank. Each knew the danger of what they were about to attempt, but they wasted no speech over it. Wild life had taught them both that the need of things demanded effort and action, and that the tongue found its fit vocation at the camp-fire when the day’s work was done.
With dexterity born of long practice they launched the canoe, and were soon making it spring to each stroke of the paddles as they stemmed the muddy current. A steady procession of lagging ice-cakes, each thoroughly capable of crushing thePeterboroughlike an egg-shell, was drifting on the surface, and it required of the boys the utmost vigilance and skill to thread them safely.
Anxiously they watched the great bend above, down which at any moment might rush another ice-run. And as anxiously they watched the ice strandedagainst the bank and towering a score of feet above them. Cake was poised upon cake and piled in precarious confusion, while the boys had to hug the shore closely to avoid the swifter current of mid-stream. Now and again great heaps of this ice tottered and fell into the river, rolling and rumbling like distant thunder, and lashing the water into fair-sized tidal waves.
Several times they were nearly swamped, but saved themselves by quick work with the paddles. And all the time Charley Drake’s pillard camp smoke grew nearer and clearer. But it was still on the opposite shore, and they knew they must get higher up before they attempted to shoot across.
Entering the Stewart River, they paddled up a few hundred yards, shot across, and then continued up the right hank of the Yukon. Before long they came to the Bald-Face Bluffs—huge walls of rock which rose perpendicularly from the river. Here the current was swiftest inshore, forming the first serious obstacle encountered by the boys. Below the bluffs they rested from their exertions in a favorable eddy, and then, paddling their strongest, strove to dash past.
At first they gained, but in the swiftest place the current overpowered them. For a full sixty seconds they remained stationary, neither advancing nor receding, the grim cliff base within reach of their arms, their paddles dipping and lifting like clockwork, and the rough water dashing by in muddy haste. For a full sixty seconds, and then the canoe sheered in to the shore. To prevent instant destruction, they pressed their paddles against the rocks,sheered back into the stream, and were swept away. Regaining the eddy, they stopped for breath. A second time they attempted the passage; but just as they were almost past, a threatening ice-cake whirled down upon them on the angry tide, and they were forced to flee before it.
“Um stiff, I think yes,” Chilkoot Jim said, mopping the sweat from his face as they again rested in the eddy. “Next time um make um, sure.”
“We’ve got to. That’s all there is about it,” Walt answered, his teeth set and lips tight-drawn, for Pete Muso had set a bad example, and he was almost ready to cry from exhaustion and failure. A third time they darted out of the head of the eddy, plunged into the swirling waters, and worked a snail-like course ahead. Often they stood still for the space of many strokes, but whatever they gained they held, and they at last drew out into easier water far above. But every moment was precious. There was no telling when the Yukon would again become a scene of wild anarchy in which neither man nor any of his works could hope to endure. So they held steadily to their course till they had passed above Charley Drake’s camp by a quarter of a mile. The river was fully a mile wide at this point, and they had to reckon on being carried down by the swift current in crossing it.
Walt turned his head from his place in the bow. Jim nodded. Without further parley they headed the canoe out from the shore, at an angle of forty-five degrees against the current. They were on the last stretch now; the goal was in fair sight. Indeed, as they looked up from the toil to mark their progress,they could see Charley Drake and his two comrades come down to the edge of the river to watch them.
Five hundred yards; four hundred yards; thePeterboroughcut the water like a blade of steel; the paddles were dipping, dipping, dipping in rapid rhythm—and then a warning shout from the bank sent a chill to their hearts. Round the great bend just above rolled a mighty wall of glistening white. Behind it, urging it on to lightning speed, were a million tons of long-pent water.
The right flank of the ice-run, unable to get cleanly round the bend, collided with the opposite shore, and even as they looked they saw the ice mountains rear toward the sky, rise, collapse, and rise again in glittering convulsions. The advancing roar filled the air so that Walt could not make himself heard; but he paused long enough to wave his paddle significantly in the direction of Dawson. Perhaps Charley Drake, seeing, might understand.
With two swift strokes they whirled thePeterboroughdown-stream. They must keep ahead of the rushing flood. It was impossible to make either bank at that moment. Every ounce of their strength went into the paddles, and the frail canoe fairly rose and leaped ahead at every stroke. They said nothing. Each knew and had faith in the other, and they were too wise to waste their breath. The shore-line—trees, islands and the Stewart River—flew by at a bewildering rate, but they barely looked at it.
Occasionally Chilkoot Jim stole a glance behind him at the pursuing trail, and marked the fact thatthey held their own. Once he shaped a sharper course toward the bank, but found the trail was overtaking them, and gave it up.
Gradually they worked in to land, their failing strength warning them that it was soon or never. And at last, when they did draw up to the bank, they were confronted by the inhospitable barrier of the stranded shore-ice. Not a place could be found to land, and with safety virtually within arm’s reach, they were forced to flee on down the stream. They passed a score of places, at each of which, had they had plenty of time, they could have clambered out; but behind pressed on the inexorable trail, and would not let them pause.
Half a mile of this work drew heavily upon their strength; and the trail came upon them nearer and nearer. Its sullen grind was in their ears, and its collisions against the bank made one continuous succession of terrifying crashes. Walt felt his heart thumping against his ribs and caught each breath in painful gasps. But worst of all was the constant demand upon his arms.
If he could only rest for the space of one stroke, he felt that the torture would be relieved; but no, it was dip and lift, dip and lift, till it seemed as if at each stroke he would surely die. But he knew that Chilkoot Jim was suffering likewise; that their lives depended each upon the other; and that it would be a blot upon his manhood should he fail or even miss a stroke.
They were very weary, but their faith was large, and if either felt afraid, it was not of the other, but of himself.
Flashing round a sharp point, they came upon their last chance for escape. An island lay close inshore, upon the nose of which the ice lay piled in a long slope. They drove thePeterboroughhalf out of water upon a shelving cake and leaped out. Then, dragging the canoe along, slipping and tripping and falling, but always getting nearer the top, they made their last mad scramble.
As they cleared the crest and fell within the shelter of the pines, a tremendous crash announced the arrival of the trail. One huge cake, shoved to the top of the rim-ice, balanced threateningly above them and then toppled forward.
With one jerk they flung themselves and the canoe from beneath, and again fell, breathless and panting for air. The thunder of the ice-run came dimly to their ears; but they did not care. It held no interest for them whatsoever. All they wished was simply to lie there, just as they had fallen, and enjoy the inaction of repose.
Two hours later, when the river once more ran open, they carried thePeterboroughdown to the water. But just before they launched it, Charley Drake and a comrade paddled up in another canoe.
“Well, you boys hardly deserve to have good folks out looking for you, the way you’ve behaved,” was his greeting. “What under the sun made you leave your tent and get chased by the trail? Eh? That’s what I’d like to know.”
It took but a minute to explain the real state of affairs, and but another to see Charley Drake hurrying along on his way to his sick partner at Dawson.
“Pretty close shave, that,” Walt Masters said,as they prepared to get aboard and paddle back to camp.
“Sure!” Chilkoot Jim replied, rubbing his stiffened biceps in a meditative fashion.
By John L. Mathews
There were three government beacon-lights in Big Timber Bend, and the uppermost of them was Barney Layton’s. It was nothing more than a lantern set in a frame against a white target on the top of a post, fifty feet from the edge of the deep bank of the Mississippi River. It was at the very head of the bend, at the foot of the “crossing” by which the channel came from the lower end of Silverplate Bend over into Big Timber. It stood there so that the pilots on river steamers, coming down, could set the bows of their boats toward it, and run straight and true in the channel between the lower end of McAlpin’s Bar and the head of Nodaway Towhead.
When the river was low, this channel was both shoal and narrow, and the white target by day and the bright lantern by night had been gladly welcomed by pilots who had figured their way over the crossing in old days by sounding-pole and luck.
Every night at sunset Barney climbed the levee in front of his mother’s cabin, walked the half-mile down to the head of Big Timber, and out by a path he had made through the big timber itself to hislight-post, carrying the lantern, which he set in place and lighted. Every morning he came early to put it out and carry it home for cleaning and filling. For this the government paid his mother seventy-five dollars a year, besides furnishing the oil and other supplies; and seventy-five dollars a year is a considerable amount behind a levee in lower Arkansas.
The work was not always as easy as it sounds. Some years the Mississippi never rises out of its banks—and some years it does. When it did, it filled all the big timber in front of the levee with a rushing current, and Barney Layton had to use main strength as well as his wits getting out in his skiff to tend his light. Sometimes he would be carried by, and washed a mile down-stream before he could get out of the current and start home again; and with the river out of its banks, he was always rather glad when the post, too, was submerged, and the support for his light was either nailed on a tree in the front of the big timber or abandoned altogether for a week or two.
Big Timber Bend had been stable for several years. The swift current of the river sweeping by its front had apparently taken not a foot of soil from it. The light-post had been shifted hardly a rod in two seasons. The crossing seemed to hold its place.
But at last came a big water out of the Ohio, which found the river already full and the lower tributaries high. For weeks it stood over the banks and against the levees, and when at last it went down, it left the earthen banks saturated with water,so that they could with difficulty sustain their own weight without collapsing.
Then Silverplate Bend began to cave. As the pressure of the water on its front was withdrawn, the bank began to topple over and settle into the river in great slices, eating back farther and farther, changing the shape of the bend, and altering the set of the current over the crossing. The deflected swift water ate up into McAlpin’s Bar, and struck Big Timber Bend a hundred yards above the light; and one night theRupert Lee, coming up, and steering by Barney’s beacon, as it turned where the crossing used to be, ran hard on a new bar at the head of Nodaway Towhead. She got off before morning, and lay up at the light till the crossing could be sounded, and Barney had a chat about it with pilot Ned Hinckley.
“Better get your light shifted,” said the pilot, banteringly. “If we’d been coming down and struck that bar with the current, theRupertwould have left her bones in it. What good’s a false beacon, youngster?”
“A false beacon?” Barney took that very much to heart. He told his mother about it, and she forthwith wrote to the lighthouse inspector; but the letter was forestalled the next day, when the tenderLilyherself arrived with the inspector on board, sounded out a new channel, and moved Barney’s light up the bank to mark it.
“Now, Barney,” said the inspector, “you’ve got to be on watch. That bank in Silverplate is going to make trouble below. Big Timber Bend will begin caving before many days. It can’t stand this.The water is seventy feet deep right in front of this bank, and it must be cutting pretty steep now. The snag boat will be along pretty soon and cut the timber off quite away back, and then we’ll set the light farther inland. But till then you must watch, and if the bank where the light is starts to go, get the target and nail it to the front of that big gum-tree right behind it. If that goes, keep on working straight back till we get here. The crossing is moving up so you’ll be about right.”
Barney promised faithfully—and he kept his word. He was only a boy of fifteen, and it was a good deal of responsibility to have on his shoulders; but Barney was used to all kinds of responsibility, from taking care of his mother to hauling his cotton to the gin. He would keep this beacon true.
The inspector’s prophecy was promptly verified. Within a week Big Timber Bend was caving, and caving badly. When Barney came to put the light out one morning, he heard the roar of it—a roar that made him run, for it was more than the noise of earthen banks going in; it was the sound of trees crashing into the river.
He hurried through the woods and found his light still standing, but so close to the edge that it seemed saved by a miracle. The bank before it had given and slipped into the water, leaving not over a foot of earth before the post, and the ladder by which he usually mounted stuck out over empty air.
Barney approached cautiously, knowing that the whole section on which he stood might at any moment sink into the deep water. As he neared the edge, there was a roar, and a big section ten rodsdown-stream went under. Barney felt chills run up and down his spine, but he stayed to get his light. Foot by foot he advanced, waiting to see if anything would happen after each step, and reached at last the six-foot post, “shinned” cautiously up it, grasped the lantern, and retired to safer ground.
Then he thought of the target. To get it was a task, for he might shake the post free and precipitate himself into the eddying water thirty feet below. But he must have the target. So cautiously he went back, and cautiously he tugged and wrenched until he had the white board loose. Then he went back to the house for nails and a hammer; and later in the day he came back to fix a new mounting, and brought the lantern with him.
Meanwhile the river had not been idle. Barney had left the white target at the foot of the big gum-tree on which it was to be nailed; but the river had evidently desired the piece of bank on which that gum-tree stood, and had undermined it. It had cracked off fifty feet back of the tree, and an acre at more had slumped down about four feet. There it had stopped, but Barney knew that the slightest jar might be enough to start the whole piece settling again beneath the river. Did he dare jump down on it, run out, get his target, and scramble back? Did he dare?
Barney thought about false beacons, and scarcely hesitated. The bank on which he stood had cut away as sharply as if chiseled, and the soil that formed the edge was still wet and smooth. Over it slipped Barney to the lower part, and hastened toward the gum.
He had just reached it when he felt a peculiar trembling of the earth, and heard a series of loud splashes at the waterside. A quick glance told him what was happening. The whole loose segment on which he stood had started slipping again. It went slowly down, while Barney raced for the firm bank; but when he reached the edge of the slipping piece he was already confronted by a precipice at least fifteen feet in height, to scale which was impossible.
Badly frightened, but not panic-stricken, he made two or three futile attempts, only to bring the earth crashing down with him; and realizing that this was to invite immediate sinking of the part he stood on, he looked for another plan. Up- and down-stream ran the precipice which balked him. All round the other sides the land gave sharply down into the river, and at its feet washed that swift current, which, within a short distance of the edge, was seventy feet deep.
Barney went carefully back to the big gum-tree, wondering how he would get off. As he stood by it the earth slipped five or six feet lower, and Barney realized that another six feet would put him under water. Then he had an idea. There was one route to possible safety—up the big gum-tree!
Sometimes when the bank goes in, such trees roll over and drift away, their roots free of earth. Sometimes they turn their roots up, embed their branches in the bottom, and form dangerous snags. But sometimes they stand upright for days, even weeks, their tops out of water, their main trunk and roots hidden deep beneath the flood. This wasgoing down so straight that Barney hoped it might take that course.
It was a big tree and the nearest fork was at least twenty feet up. But Barney had brought his hammer and a pocketful of four-inch nails for the target. He picked the target up, and with two of them nailed it firmly to the tree five feet above the ground. He took a cord from his pocket and hung his lantern over his shoulder, drove a spike two feet from the ground for a step, mounted on it and threw a knee over the target, and drove another two feet above that.
Sitting on the target, he drove another still higher, and then standing, drove another above that. They were not directly in line, but formed a sort of ladder for him, although a ladder difficult to cling to.
He was still standing on the target when the earth slipped again, and this time tilted, so that the shore edge was below water-line; but the outer edge was a foot or two above the eddies, and the tree tilted shoreward slightly. That made climbing easier. He was on the upper side, and could lean somewhat against the tree. Nail after nail he drove, and climbed steadily upward until, as he reached the crotch and found branches on which he could mount more easily, the land in which the tree was rooted caved easily down into the turbulent water!
Had a mad dog suddenly learned how to climb a tree, and scrambled up after him, Barney could not have climbed faster than he now went up the rest of the big gum. He fairly jumped frombranch to branch, warned of the need of haste by the gurgle of water below.
The bank went down steadily as he went up, but at last it came to rest again, leaving Barney ten feet above the water, and on the highest branch on which he dared to risk his weight.
Looking about him, he discovered himself in a dreadful plight. All round rushed the swift water of the channel current, bending and swaying his treetop till he feared it would be torn away. Fifty feet of angry water lay between him and the shore, and the shore itself was a frowning cliff almost perpendicular and thirty feet high. It was three miles down to the foot of Big Timber Bend, and Barney could see no prospect of being able to swim out.
He cogitated until dusk came, and could not imagine how any one would come to rescue him.
He had kept his hammer, thrust into his outside pocket, when he sprang into the branches, and with his last nail he made a hook for his lantern on the swaying tree. Then he lighted and hung the beacon.
“Must keep that true,” he said aloud, as he did so.
Then settling himself in the most nearly comfortable position he could find, he prepared to wait until some solution of his difficulty was thrust upon him, either by the final collapse of the tree or by the arrival of rescue. As it was a warm summer night, even the cool of the river could not make his position impossible, and there was nothing for him to do but wait.
When the big steamboatRupert Lee, bounddown, swung into the head of Silverplate Bend long after midnight, pilot Ned Hinckley prepared for trouble.
“Landing’s gone,” he said to his helper on the other side of the big wheel. “I saw Jim Higgins, who came up in theWalsh Honsell, and he says it has cut back a quarter of a mile. The whole bend has gone. The two houses at the landing—the people hardly got out. That’s what they get for living outside the levee. I wish I knew what we’ll find in the crossing below. Like as not, Big Timber Beacon has gone into the river before now.”
The big side-wheeler coughed her way down through the Silverplate Bend cautiously enough, feeling it by the loom of the shore, since the lights at the head and middle of it were gone.
Only a solitary beacon at the foot remained, and as they swept the curve the pilot reached for a lever and threw on the search-light, and with it lighted up the bend.
All along its front, tree trunks cluttered a ragged bank, and the water rustled through their tops as they lay fallen half-over. He cut the light off, and brought the steamboat a little farther out.
“Hate to take chances on McAlpin’s Bar,” he said. “But there are some nasty snags there, and the bar is the lesser evil.”
So they came down to the foot of the bend and to the solitary beacon. Then the pilot cast a glance across the river.
“Well, by hokey!” he exclaimed. “Big Timber Light is still standing. I’m glad of that. TheLilyreset it, and if ever I was glad to see a light I am glad to see that one now.”
He brought the big wheel spinning over toward him, and theRupert Leeswung its nose out from the bank, and slowly turned its huge bulk till it was headed toward the Big Timber Beacon. The current swept it downward as it turned, so that as it finally “straightened out,” the two lights bore almost directly ahead and astern, the proper line for a run through the thread of channel below McAlpin’s Bar. Hinckley thoughtfully eyed the Big Timber Beacon.
“Tommy,” he said, “does that light seem to be as high up as usual?”
“Pretty low,” commented Tommy, peering out into the darkness. “Looks to me like it ain’t steady, either.”
The light was, indeed, swaying with the motion of the tree, but a moment later it swayed much more violently. Barney had taken it from its nail, and was swinging it to and fro in a long arc, in the usual manner of hailing a passing steamboat.
“It ain’t the beacon at all—or else some one is using it for a signal-light!” exclaimed the pilot.
He threw the lever, and the search-light blazed out. A turn of a little wheel overhead directed the beams, and out of the darkness leaped the picture of a caved bank, a treetop waving in the water, and the figure of some one in the treetop swaying the light.
“It’s the beacon all right,” said the pilot, “or it’s where the beacon was.”
He reached for a rope, and sounded loudly threelong blasts of the whistle, two short and another long. On the lower deck all was activity at once.
“What’s the landing, Mr. Hinckley?” came a deep voice from the darkness below. The pilot leaned out of the window and answered:
“Head of Big Timber Bend, captain. Something wrong with the beacon—some one in the water.”
He signaled the engine-room and the wheels stopped, and again theRupert Leeswung round.
Hinckley took a quick survey of the bank up and down the bend, then turned his light on the beacon tree. The figure of Barney stood out in bold detail.
“Hello!” said the pilot. “It’s the kid that tends the light. Lower the stage on deck there, and brace the inner end of it. Send some one out to pick the boy out of that tree. We will have to do it quick. Don’t miss him, now.”
TheRupert Leewas broadside to the current, and drifting swiftly down-stream. The wheels were barely turning.
The port landing-stage was run out forward and lowered, a dozen negro hands were stationed on the inboard end of it, and a stout “rouster” and the mate ran to the outer end, where they hung out over the water. Barney saw them coming and made ready to be caught.
He hung the lantern on its nail, freed himself from the branches, and as Hinckley, with the skill of a lifelong experience, set the wheels of the steamer back to clear the nest of fallen trees, Barney reached out, and the two on the landing-stage caught him and dragged him on board. Thesteamer backed away and turned down-stream, and Barney, after hearty congratulations from the lower deck, was escorted to the pilot-house.
“Hello, bub!” said the pilot, as he came in. “No false light about you, is there? You guided us over that crossing straight as a die, and I’ll report the way you did it to the department.”
He did report him, too, and things came of that; but the ending of this story came when Barney had been put aboard theKate Clancyin the bend below, to be carried back home. And as theKate Clancycame up through Big Timber Bend, to drop him at the foot of McAlpin’s Bar, he and her captain surveyed the scene of his adventure, and found no sign of the beacon, for the big gum-tree and the lantern had gone into the river.
By Lelia Munsell
“Well, Hilda, do you want to try again?”
Mr. Kenyon had hung up his overcoat and cap and was standing with his back to the fire, which Hilda had quickened when she heard him coming. She knew he would be chilled, for it was a cold February night.
“Johnston told me that there would be a change for the spring term down here in Hazel Row,” he went on. “The board is going to meet next Monday, he said. So if you want to try again we’d better get in your application within a day or two.”
Mrs. Kenyon heard her husband’s question, and came in from the kitchen to hear what further he might have to say, while the two younger children dropped their play to listen. They were all interested in Hilda’s attempt to get a school.
“You could board at home if you got that,” said Mrs. Kenyon. “It’s only two miles.”
Mr. Kenyon laughed. “Better catch your hare before you cook it. Perhaps Hilda doesn’t even want to try again.”
“Papa,” cried Hilda, indignantly, “you know I want to try again! But now listen, you and mamma both. And please don’t think I don’t appreciate what you have done to help me; but I want to go all alone this time. If I am ever going to make a teacher, I must learn to depend upon myself. I can’t always have you to do things for me. And besides, I don’t blame a school board for not hiring a teacher who hasn’t grit enough to apply alone. You know I can’t say anything for myself when you are along, papa. I can talk before a stranger lots better than I can before you.”
“I don’t see why you should feel that way,” interposed Mrs. Kenyon. “You surely are not afraid of your father.”
“I’m not afraid of him in one sense, but in another sense I am. I can’t talk to the directors before him as I could if I were alone. I let papa apply for me last fall, and I let him go along twice this spring, and I haven’t a school yet.”
Mrs. Kenyon started to speak, but her husband shook his head at her. “I guess we’ll have to letyou have your way this time,” he said. “We’ll see if you succeed any better than I did.”
Hilda gave him a grateful look.
“But how are you going?” he asked.
“Couldn’t I walk? It isn’t far.”
“No, indeed. Johnston, of course, is less than two miles away, but Mr. Andrews lives four or five miles northeast, and Smith is as far in the other direction. You’ll have twelve or fourteen miles to travel by the time you get back home. There is too much snow for you to walk, anyway, even if it wasn’t too far. And I can’t trust you to drive the team alone as cold as it is.”
“I can ride old Selim. He’s safe enough.”
“Yes, he’s safe enough. But you will find it pretty cold, riding so far on horseback.”
“You’d better let your father take you in the buggy,” said Mrs. Kenyon. “You’ll freeze to death on Selim.”
“Now, mamma, please!” begged Hilda, and her mother said no more.
Hilda had many ambitions, but the nearest and most absorbing one was to get a school. Beyond that lay a college course, and beyond that—she hardly dare to think of all the good things the future might hold for her and hers if only she might go to college.
But she knew that the money for a college course must come from her own efforts.
She had been a very proud girl when her first certificate came. It was only for a year, of course. According to the laws of the state, one must have taught three months to receive a certificate for alonger time than that. But her grades were high enough to entitle her to a second class.
The county superintendent had enclosed a kind little note with the certificate, and had spoken personally to her father, commending her work very highly. Hilda felt that she had a right to be proud.
But the certificate in itself was not worth much. Its chief value lay in the fact that it entitled her to teach if she could get a school. And how she did want a school! She dreamed of it by night and talked of it by day.
Her father’s announcement that there was a vacancy so near home raised her hopes again. If she could get the place she could save all her salary, for the schoolhouse was so near that she could board at home, as her mother had said. She must get it, that was all. And she felt that she must go alone. Mr. Kenyon made no objection this time, and Mrs. Kenyon consented on the condition that Hilda would allow herself to be well bundled up for the long, cold ride.
Hilda readily consented to this, but she almost rued her bargain in the morning when her mother insisted on putting a large coat of her own over Hilda’s and in tying a scarf over the warm hood, and when the girl had climbed on the horse she had wrapped a warm shawl about her.
“How in the world am I to get on and off again with all this stuff, mamma?” she asked. “I feel as wrapped up as a mummy. I know I’ll frighten all the horses I meet.”
It was well, perhaps, that she could not see herself,for she certainly cut rather a ridiculous figure. Added to all the rest, she was riding her father’s saddle. The right stirrup had been thrown over, and in this her foot rested, while the left stirrup dangled below. She had never been fortunate enough to possess a side-saddle, and had often ridden in this way about the farm.
But she could not help feeling a little sensitive about her appearance on this occasion, which meant so much to her, and she wished her mother would not be so fussy.
As she drew near Mr. Johnston’s house, she considered.
It would take her some time to disentangle herself from her many wrappings, and to any one watching from the house she would present rather a ridiculous appearance in her necessarily clumsy efforts to dismount.
So she halted old Selim some distance from the front gate, and here, hidden by the trees, she divested herself of her extra garments.
Her heart was pounding away vigorously as she knocked and inquired if Mr. Johnston was in. She had known him ever since she could remember, but he seemed suddenly to have become almost a stranger. Outwardly, however, it was a very dignified young lady who presented her case before him.
It seemed to her that he looked at her for fully five minutes without speaking.
“So you want to teach?” he asked at last. “Pretty young, aren’t you? How old are you? Seventeen?”
“Yes, sir,” answered Hilda. “I suppose that isn’t very old, but I have a good certificate, and I am pretty sure that I can teach a good school. At least, I’d try my best if you would give me a chance.”
“That’s what they all say,” remarked Mr. Johnston.
“I know. But that is all Icansay till somebody gives me a chance to show what I can do.”
“You have had no experience, of course.”
“No. But if I am ever to make a teacher, I’ll have to teach my first school sometime and somewhere.”
“I guess that’s so. Got some pretty good grades here.” He had been examining the certificate she had handed him.
“Yes, sir,” answered Hilda, modestly.
Again he was silent. Then he handed her back her certificate. “Well, I’ll tell you, Hilda. So far as I am concerned, I am willing to give you a chance. I’ve known you ever since you were a baby, and I know you are a wide-awake, energetic little girl. But I’m only one of three, and I am afraid you won’t stand the best of chances with the other two. You don’t know either of them personally, do you? I thought not. Andrews wants the place for a cousin of his, and Smith will think you are too young. But go and see both of them. Don’t tell them what I’ve said. Simply say that you spoke to me about it. Smith is president of the board.”
Hilda thanked him and went her way, much encouraged in spite of what he had said about herpossible reception by the other two members. She experienced some difficulty in mounting and dismounting each time, encumbered as she was, but that did not trouble her much now, although she was careful at both places to stop far enough away from the house, as she had done at Mr. Johnston’s, to enable her to accomplish this feat without being seen.
And she was truly thankful that no one asked her how she came. She much preferred that the men whose interest she was trying to enlist should not see her perched up on old Selim, like a big round bump on a log, as her father had expressed it.
Fortunately, she found both Mr. Andrews and Mr. Smith at home, but she did not receive the encouragement from them that she had done from Mr. Johnston.
Indeed, Mr. Andrews told her that the school was as good as engaged, and that it was useless for her to see Mr. Smith. Hilda, remembering what Mr. Johnston had told her about the cousin, made no reply, but resolved to call upon Mr. Smith.
Mr. Smith listened to her courteously and quietly. “Pretty young, aren’t you?” he asked.
Hilda laughed. “I expected you to say that. But it isn’t always age and experience that make success. I have always wanted to teach, and I’ve always thought I could teach, and I believe I can, if Iamyoung.”
“I don’t know but that’s the right way to talk. We’ve got to believe in ourselves before we everamount to much. How much would you want a month?”
She was not prepared for this question. In her heart she knew that she would take the school at whatever they might offer. But she reflected that it would not be policy to say so, so she answered:
“Whatever you have been paying for your spring term.”
“Well, we’ll talk over your application Monday. If we want you, we will let you know. You needn’t come to see us about it again.”
Hilda was obliged to be content with this. She thanked him, and then, behind the grove where she had tied her horse, she bundled herself up for the ride home, where an eager audience listened to her story while she thawed out her fingers and toes.
The next six days seemed interminably long to her, but Monday came at last. All day she listened expectantly for a step on the front porch, but no one came that day or the next. Wednesday morning she was helping her father about the barn, when she heard some one behind her, and turned to face Mr. Johnston.
“Hello!” he cried. “So you concluded to try farming if you couldn’t get a school?”
Hilda smiled in reply. She could not trust herself to speak. So she had failed again.
Mr. Johnston chatted with her father for a time, while she went bravely on with her work. It would never do to let him know how disappointed she was.
“Well, Hilda,” he said, finally, “I’ll expect you to do me credit this spring.”
Hilda looked up, surprised.
“We concluded we would try you,” he continued. “Andrews stuck out for his cousin, but Smith went with me. Smith was quite taken with you. Andrews’ cousin had let him attend to her application, and had never come to see one of us about it. Smith didn’t like that way of doing things, and I confess I don’t, myself. You’ll get thirty-five dollars for three months. If that is satisfactory, I guess we might as well go to the house and sign the contract now.”
Hilda felt that she was treading on air as she followed him to the house, and when she saw her name signed to the little slip of paper, the contract between herself and District No. 33, she secretly pinched herself to see if she were awake. She wanted to shout, but of course that would not do. But the moment Mr. Johnston was gone she seized her mother about the waist and whirled her round the room.
“Just think, mamma! Just think!” she cried. “I’ve actually got a school. One hundred and five dollars, and no board to pay. Maybe, now, I won’t have to wait any longer to go to college than I had expected to do in the first place. And, mamma,” she drew her mother close and whispered in her ear, “when I get to be a professor in some big university you won’t have to work any more, and I can give you the things that I’ve wanted and wanted so long to give you.”
By Josephine Dodge Daskam Bacon
It never would have happened but for Miss Eleanor’s mission class. Once a week through the winter she went in the cars to a town not far from the city, where there were a great many mills, but few schools, and talked to a crowd of the mill-hands’ little children. She did not give them lessons, exactly, but she told them stories and sang songs with them and interested them in keeping themselves and their homes clean and pretty. They were very fond of her and were continually bringing in other children, so that after the first year she gave up the small room she had rented and took them up two flights into an old dancing-hall, a little out of the center of the town.
The Imp had been from the beginning deeply interested in this scheme, and when he learned that many of the boys were just exactly eight and a half—his own age—and that they played all sorts of games and told stories and sang songs, and had good times generally, his interest and excitement grew, and every Thursday found him begging his mother or big aunty, with whom they spent the winter, to telephone to his dear Miss Eleanor that this time he was to accompany her and see all those fascinating children: big Hans, who, though fourteen, was young for his years and stupid; little Olga, who was only eleven, but who mothered all the others, and had brought more children into the class than anyone else;Pierre, who sang like a bird, and wore a dark-blue jersey and a knitted cap pulled over his ears; red-headed Mike, who was all freckles and fun; and pretty, shy Elizabeth, with deep violet eyes and a big dimple, who was too frightened to speak at first, and who ran behind the door even now if a stranger came.
But it was not till the Imp gave up being eight and a half and arrived at what his Uncle Stanley called quarter of nine that Miss Eleanor decided that he might go if his mother would let him.
“I used to think,” she said, “that it wouldn’t be wise to take him. I thought they’d feel awkward; for of course he’s better dressed, and I don’t want them to feel that they’re being shown off or made an exhibition of, even to a child. But I know them so well now, and I’ve told them about him and how he loves to play games, and wants to come, and I think it may really be a good thing—for both sides.”
So on one delicious Thursday in early February, the Imp boarded the train proudly, and they steamed out of the big station. He had gone over the entire afternoon, in anticipation, with Harvey, his little lame friend, who could not go to school, but did his lessons with a tutor, and with whom the Imp studied every morning during the three or four months they spent in the city; and Harvey was as interested as he, and sent his best love to them all.
From the moment of the Imp’s entrance, when his cheerful “Hullo!” made him any number of friends, and his delight at being there made themall delighted to have him, he was a great success; and when big Hans, with a furtive glance at the Imp’s clean hands, went quietly off to the ever-ready basin and washed his own, Miss Eleanor regretted that she had not brought him sooner.
When they had finished the story about Washington at Valley Forge—for Miss Eleanor was quietly teaching them history—she got them into a long line that reached quite around the room, and went out for a moment, returning with a drum in her hand: not a play drum, but a real one, with polished black sticks and a fascinating strap to cross over the shoulder.
“Now,” said she, “we’re going to learn the fire-drill, and we’ll take turns at the drum.”
The children were delighted, and stood still as mice while she explained the order of affairs. In the big city public schools, she had been told, they practiced going out in line at a mock alarm of fire, and the boy or girl who broke out of line or dashed for the door before the drum-tap was disgraced for days in the eyes of the school. Everything must be quiet and in order; every child must have his place and take it; no one must cry out, or run ahead, or push, or try to hurry matters; and what was most important, all must keep step—which was why the drum came to be there.
She arranged them carefully: little one first, then girls, last of all the boys, with big Hans at the rear, and Olga managing a crowd of the little ones.
“Now,” she said, “we won’t leave the room this first time; we’ll just march round and round till wecan all keep step, and later we’ll practice going through the halls and downstairs. I’ll drum the first time, and then the best boy shall be drummer.”
The friend who had suggested the fire-drill when Miss Eleanor had begged her for some new game to play, had never seen one, and did not know the exact details, but she knew the general idea of it, and she knew, too, that it was not at all easy for people to keep in step, even to a drum. This had surprised Miss Eleanor greatly. She supposed that anybody could keep step, and she was much inclined to doubt her friend’s statement that a large number of grown people, even, found it difficult.
But there was a still greater surprise in store for her. When she slung the strap over her pretty red waist and hit the drum a resounding blow, a very different sound from what she had expected was the result—a muffled, flat noise, with nothing inspiring about it whatever. She bit her lip and tried again, the children watching her attentively from the sides of the big room.
Bang!
Bang!
Bang, bang, bang!
A few feet began to keep time, but the sound was not very different from that produced by a stick hit against the wall, and big Hans, whose father played in a band, and who had attended many rehearsals—it was from him the drum had been procured—shook his head solemnly.
“Not so! Not so!” he said in his thick, gruff voice. “You no hit good! You no hit hard!”
“Oh, Hans, canyouplay it?” cried Miss Eleanoreagerly. “Here, take it!” And she flung the strap over his shoulder.
Hans shambled out to the center of the room, and struck a mighty blow. The familiar deep sound of a drum filled the place, and Miss Eleanor sighed with relief, but alas! her joy was short-lived, for poor Hans had no idea of time, and could only pound away like a hammer. In vain she held his hand and tried to guide his strokes. The noise was deafening, but no more to be marched to than thunder.
Little Pierre tried next, but though he kept perfect time, and looked very cunning in his little blue blouse, his taps were too light to cover the sound of the tramping feet.
Miss Eleanor’s cheeks were red with vexation. Her arm ached, and the children were getting restless. She did not know what to do.
“Oh, dear!Whowould have thought it was so hard?” she exclaimed pathetically. And then she noticed the Imp, who was fairly holding his lips in his effort to keep silence. For he had solemnly promised his mother not to put himself forward, nor suggest anything, nor offer to do a single thing till he was asked, on pain of never coming again.
“What is it, Perry?” she asked.
“Ican—Ican play a drum, Miss Eleanor!” he burst out.
She looked doubtful: the Imp was given to thinking that he could do most things.
“This isn’t a play drum, you know, dear; it’s a real one,” she said.
“But I can play a real one. Truly I can! Mr. Archer taught me—he was a truly drummer-boy in the war; he showed me how. He said I could hit it up like a good ’un!” the Imp exploded again.
Miss Eleanor dimly remembered that among the Imp’s amazing list of acquaintances, a one-legged Grand Army man, who kept a newspaper-stall, had been mentioned, and decided that it could do no harm to let him try.
“Well, put it on,” she said, and the Imp proudly assumed the drum, grasped the sticks loosely between his fingers, wagged his head knowingly from side to side, and began.
Brrrm!
Brrrm!
Brrrm! brrrm! brrrm!
The straggling line straightened, the children began to grin, and little Pierre, at the head of the line, stamped his foot and started off. Miss Eleanor’s forehead smoothed, and she smiled encouragingly at the Imp.
“That’s it, that’s it!” she cried delightedly. “How easy it looks!”
But the Imp stopped suddenly, and the moving line stopped with him.
“Wait! I forgot!” he said peremptorily. “You mustn’t start till I do this.”
And with a few preliminary taps he gave the long roll that sends a pleasant little thrill to the listener’s heart.
Brrrm!
Brrrm!
Brrrrr—umdum!
The children jumped with delight, and the line started off, the Imp drumming for dear life around the inside of the big square, and Miss Eleanor keeping the hasty ones back and hurrying the stragglers, trying to make big Hans feel the rhythm, and suppressing Pierre’s happy little skips.
After a half-hour of this they begged to try the halls and stairs, and the Imp stood proudly on the landings, keeping always at about the middle of the line, stamping his right foot in time with his sticks, his eyes shining with joy, his little body straight as a dart.
Miss Eleanor was delighted. The boys responded so well to her little talk on protecting the girls and waiting till they were placed before taking their own stand in the line, the girls stood so straight, the little ones entered so well into the spirit of the thing, that she felt that afternoon to have been one of the best they had had, and confided as much to the Imp on their journey home.
As for the Imp, he had a new interest in life, and talked of little else than the fire-drill for days. There was no question as to his going the next Thursday, and he and his drum formed the chief attraction of the day, for the drill proved the most popular game of all, and after the proclamation had gone forth that none but clean-handed, neatly dressed, respectful boys need aspire to head the line, such boys were in a great and satisfying majority.
For a month they had been practicing regularly,and by the end of that time every child knew his place and took it instantly at the opening tap. It was pretty to see little Olga shake back her yellow pigtails and marshal her tiny brood into line; even the smallest of them kept step nicely now.
Only big Hans could not learn, and Pierre walked by his side in vain, trying to make him feel the rhythm of the Imp’s faithful drumsticks.
There was one feature of the drill that amused Miss Eleanor’s friends greatly. Of course there was no fire-alarm in the old hall, and she would not let anyone cry out or even pretend for a moment that there was any real danger. She merely called sharply, “Now!” when they were to form, and it was one of the suppressed excitements of the afternoon to wait for that word. They never knew when it would come.
For Miss Eleanor’s one terror was fire. Twice, as a little girl, she had been carried out of a burning house; and the flames bright against the night, the hoarse shouts of the firemen, the shock of the frightened awakening, and the chill of the cold winter air had so shaken her nerves that she could hardly bear to remember it. Burglars had little terror for her; in accidents she was cool and collected; more than once, in a quiet way, she had saved people from drowning; but a bit of flaming paper turned her cheeks white and made her hands tremble. So though big Hans begged to be allowed to call out “Fire!” she would never let him, and though she explained the meaning of the drill to them, it is to be doubted if they attached muchimportance to the explanation, as she herself did not care to talk about it long.
One fine, windy Thursday—it was the second Thursday in March, and the last Thursday the Imp would be able to spend with his new friends, for he was going back to the country—they started out a little depressed in spirits: the Imp because it was his last visit, Miss Eleanor because she was afraid her children were in danger of a hard week. The hands of three of the largest factories were “on strike,” and though they were quite in the wrong, and were demanding more than any but the ring-leaders themselves felt to be just, they were excited to the pitch of rage that no reasoning can calm, and as the superintendents had absolutely refused to yield any further, affairs were at a deadlock.
One or two of Miss Eleanor’s friends had grown alarmed, and urged her not to go there till the matter was settled, but she would not hear of this.
“Why, this is the very time I want to keep the children out of the streets!” she said. “They all know me—nobody would hurt me. They know I love the children, and I have nothing to do with their quarrel. I should be willing to trust myself to any of them. They have always been very polite and respectful to me, and they’ve been getting ready for this for two weeks, for that matter.”
Her father agreed to this, and assured the Imp’s mother that any demonstration that might take place would be at the other end of the town, near the mills, and that it was very unlikely thatanything further than a shut-down for a few days would result, at most.
“They’re in the wrong, and most of them know it, I hear,” he said. “They can’t hold out long: nobody else will hire them.”
This may have been true, but it did not add to their good-humor. As the Imp and Miss Eleanor walked up through the village, the streets were filling rapidly with surly, idle men. Dark-eyed Italians, yellow-haired Swedes, shambling, gesticulating Irish, and dogged, angry English jostled each other on the narrow walks, and talked loudly. Miss Eleanor hurried the Imp along, picking up a child here and there on the way, and sighing with relief as she neared the old hall.
Some of the excitement had reached the children, and though they had come in large numbers, for they knew it was the Imp’s last visit for some time, and there had been hints of a delightful surprise for them on this occasion, they were restless and looked out of the windows often. There was a shout of applause when, the Imp suddenly becoming overwhelmed with shyness, Miss Eleanor invited them all out to his home for one day in the summer; but the excitement died down, and more than one of the older children glanced slyly at the door. The men from that end of the town were filing by, and most of the women were following after.
Miss Eleanor racked her brains for some amusement.
It was cold in the room, for the boy who had charge of the clumsy old-fashioned stove wassick that day, and there was no fire. So partly to keep them contented, and partly to get them warm, she proposed a game of blindman’s-buff. There was a shout of assent, and presently they were in the midst of a tremendous game. The stamping feet of the boys and the shrill cries of the girls made a deafening noise; the dust rose in clouds; the empty old building echoed confusingly. The fun grew fast and furious; the rules were forgotten; the boys began to scuffle and fight, and the little girls danced about excitedly.
Miss Eleanor called once or twice to quiet them, but they were beyond control; they paid no attention to her.
With a little grimace she stepped out of the crowd to breathe, and took out her watch.
“Twenty minutes!” she said to little Olga, who followed her about like a puppy. “I’ll give them ten more, and then theymuststop!”
Little Olga began to cough, and looked doubtfully at the old stove, which was given to smoking.
“It smells bad just the same, don’t it?” she called. They had to raise their voices to be heard above the noise.
“No, child, it’s the dust. Isn’t it dreadful?” Miss Eleanor called back, coughing herself. “But it smells just like smoke. How horrid it is! And how hot!” she added after a moment. “With the windows open, too! We’ll all take cold when we go out. Theymuststop! Boys, boys! Hans, come here to me!”
She rang a little bell that was the signal for quiet, and raised her hand.
“Now I’m going to open the door, to get a thorough draft, and then we’ll quiet down,” she said, and pushed through the crowd to the door.
As she opened it wide, a great cloud of brown, hot smoke poured into the room, a loud roaring, with little snapping crackles behind it, came from below, and Miss Eleanor suddenly put her hand to her heart, turned perfectly white, and half fell, half leaned against the door.
For a moment the children were quite still, so still that through the open door they could hear the roar and the crackle. Then suddenly, before she could prevent him, little Pierre slipped through and started down the hall. With a cry she went after him, half the children following her, but in a moment they crowded back, screaming and choking. The stairs at the end of the long hall were half on fire!