Crowded Out o' Crofield; or, The Boy who made his Way by William O. Stoddard (read my book txt) 📗

a turn. It's the hottest kind of work. Come along. We've done our share, and a little more, too."

Jack had just swallowed a puff of smoke, but as soon as he could stop coughing, he said:

"I've had enough. I'm coming."

Other people seemed to agree with them; but there would have been less said about it if little Joe Hawkins had not called out:

"Three cheers for the Ogdens!"

The cheers were given as the two volunteer firemen came down the ladder, but there were no speeches made in reply. Jack hurried back home at once, but his father had to stop and talk with the Bannermans and old Hammond, the miller.

"Jack," said his mother, looking at him, proudly, from head to foot, "you're always doing something or other. We were looking at you, all the while."

"He hasn't hurt his Sunday clothes a bit," said Aunt Melinda, but there was quite a crowd around the gate, and she did not hug him.

He was a little damp, his face was smoky, his shirt-collar was wilted, and his shoes would require a little work, but otherwise he was none the worse.

Jack went into the house, saying that he must brush his clothes; but, really it was because he wished to get away. He did not care to talk to anybody.

"I never felt so, in all my life, as I did when sitting on that roof, fighting that fire," he said aloud, as he went upstairs; and he did not know, even then, how excited he had been, silent and cool as he had seemed. In that short time, he had dreamed of more cities than he was ever likely to see, and of doing more great things than he could ever possibly do, and when he came down the ladder he felt older than when he went up. He had no idea that much the same thoughts had come to Mary, nor did he know how fully she believed that he could do anything, and that she was as capable as he.

"Father's splendid, too," she said, "but then he never had any chance, here, and Mother didn't either. Jack ought to have a chance."

CHAPTER IV. CAPTAIN MARY.

Mr. Murdoch had stood on the main street corner; taking notes for the Eagle, but now he came back to say the fire was out and it was nearly time for Sunday-school.

It seemed strange to have Sunday-school just after a fire, but the Ogden family and its visitors at once made ready.

It was a quarterly meeting, with general exercises and singing, and a review of the quarter's lessons. The church was full by the hour for opening, and the school had a very prosperous look. Elder Holloway and Mr. Murdoch and two other important men sat in the pulpit, and Joab Spokes, the superintendent, stood in front of them to conduct the exercises. The elder seemed to be glancing benevolently around the room, through his spectacles, but there were some things there which could be seen without glasses, and he must have seen those also.

Miss Glidden looked particularly well and very stately, as she sat in the pew in front of her class (if it were hers), with Mary Ogden. Her first words, on coming in to take command, had been:

"Mary, dear, don't go. I really wish you to stay. You may be of assistance."

Mary flushed a little, but she said nothing in reply. She remained, and she certainly did assist, for the girls looked at her almost all the while, and Miss Glidden had no trouble whatever, and nothing to do but to look pleased and beaming and dignified. The elder, it was noticed, seemed to feel special interest in the part taken in the exercises by the class with two teachers, one for show and one for work. He even seemed to see something comical in the situation, and there was positive admiration in a remark he made to Mr. Murdoch:

"She's a true teacher. There's really only one teacher to that class. She must have been born with a knack for it!"

Elder Holloway, with all his years and experience, had not understood the case of Miss Glidden's class more perfectly than had one young observer at the other end of the church. Jack Ogden could not see so well as those great men in the pulpit, but then he could hear much and surmise the rest.

"All those girls will stand by Molly!" he said to himself. "I hope it won't be long before school's dismissed," he added.

He had reasons for this hope. He was a little late through lingering to take a curious look at what was left of the fire. The street had a littered look. The barns and stables were wide open, and deserted, for the horses had been led to places of safety. There seemed to be an impression that the hotel was half destroyed; but the damage had not been very great.

A faint, thin film of blue was eddying along the ridgepole of the kitchen addition. Jack noticed it, but did not know what it meant. A more practiced observer would have known that, hidden from sight, buried in the punk of the dry-rotted timber, was a vicious spark of fire, stealthily eating its way through the punk of the resinous pine.

Jack paid little attention to the tiny smoke-wreath, but he was compelled to pay some attention to the weather. It had been hot from sunrise until noon, and the air had grown heavier since.

"I know what that haze means," said Jack to himself, as he looked toward the Cocahutchie. "There's a thunderstorm coming by and by, and nobody knows just when. I'll be on the lookout for it."

For this reason he was glad that he was compelled to find a seat not far from the door of the church. Twice he went out to look at the sky, and the second time he saw banks of lead-colored clouds forming on the northwestern horizon. Returning he said to several of the boys near the vestibule:

"You've just time to get home, if you don't want a ducking."

Each boy passed along the warning; and when the school stood up to sing the last hymn, even the girls and the older people knew of the coming storm. There was a brief silence before the first note of the organ, and through that silence nearly everybody could catch the shrill squeak in which little Joe Hawkins tried to speak very low and secretly.

"Deakin Cobb, we want to git aout! We've just time to git home if we don't want a duckin'."

The hymn started raggedly and in a wrong pitch; and just then the great room grew suddenly darker, and there was a low rumble of thunder.

"Mary Ogden!" exclaimed Miss Glidden, "what are you doing? They can't go yet!"

Mary was singing as loudly and correctly as usual, but she was out in the aisle, and the girls of that class were promptly obeying the motion of hand and head with which she summoned them to walk out of the church.

Elder Holloway may have been only keeping time when he nodded his head, but he was looking at Miss Glidden's class.

So was Miss Glidden, in a bewildered way, as if she, like little Bo-peep, were losing her sheep. Mary was following a strong and sudden impulse. Nevertheless, by the time that class was out of its pews the next caught the idea, and believed it a prudent thing to do. They followed in good order, singing as they went.

"The girls out first,—then the boys," said Elder Holloway, between two stanzas. "One class at a time. No hurry."

Darker grew the air. Jack, out in front of the church, was watching the blackest cloud he had ever seen, as it came sweeping across the sky.

The people walked out calmly enough, but all stopped singing at the door and ran their best.

"Run, Molly! Run for home!" shouted Jack, seeing Mary coming. "It's going to be an awful storm."

"Run for Home."

Inside the church there was much hesitation, for a moment; but Miss Glidden followed her class without delay, and all the rest followed as fast as they could, and were out in half the usual time. Joe Hawkins heard Jack's words to Molly.

"Run, boys," he echoed. "Cut for home! There's a fearful storm coming!"

He was right. Great drops were already falling now and then, and there was promise of a torrent to follow.

"I don't want to spoil these clothes," said Jack, uneasily. "I need these to wear in the city. The storm isn't here yet, though. I'll wait a minute." He was holding his hat on and looking up at the steeple when he said that. It was a very old, wooden steeple, tall, slender, and somewhat rheumatic, and he knew there must be more wind up so high than there was nearer the ground. "It's swinging!" he said suddenly. "I can see it bend! Glad they're all getting out. There come Elder Holloway and Mr. Murdoch. See the elder run! I hope he won't try to get to Hawkins's. He'd better run for our house."

That was precisely the counsel given the good man by the editor, and the elder said:

"I'd like to go there. I'd like to see that clever girl again. Come, Murdoch; no time to lose!"

The blast was now coming lower, and the gloom was deepening.

Flash—rattle—boom—crash! came a glitter of lightning and a great peal of thunder.

"Here it is!" cried Jack. "If it isn't a dry blast!"

It was something like the first hot breath of a hurricane. To and fro swung the tottering old steeple for a moment, and then there was another crash—a loud, grinding, splintering, roaring crash—as the spire reeled heavily down, lengthwise, through the shattered roof of the meeting-house! Except for Mary Ogden's cleverness, the ruins might have fallen upon the crowded Sunday-school. Jack turned and ran for home. He was a good runner, but he only just escaped the deluge following that thunderbolt.

Jack turned upon reaching the house, and as he looked back he uttered a loud exclamation, and out from the house rushed all the people who were gathered there.

"Jingo!" Jack shouted. "The old hotel's gone, sure, this time!"

The burrowing spark had smoldered slowly along, until it felt the first fanning of the rising gale. In another minute it flared as if under a blowpipe, and soon a fierce sheet of flame came bursting through the roof.

Down poured the rain; but the hottest of that blaze was roofed over, and the fire had its own way with the empty addition.

"We couldn't help if we should try," exclaimed Mr. Ogden.

"I'll put on my old clothes, any way," said Jack. "Nobody knows what's coming."

"I will, too," said his father.

Jack paused a moment, and said, from the foot of the stairs:

"The steeple's down,—right through the meeting-house. It has smashed the whole church!"

The sight of the fire had made him withhold that news for a minute; but now, for another minute, the fire was almost forgotten.

Elder Holloway began to say something in praise of Mary Ogden about her leading out the class, but she darted away.

"Let me get by, Jack," she said. "Let me pass, please. They all would have been killed if they had waited! But I was thinking only of my class and the rain."

She ran up-stairs and Jack followed. Then the elder made a number of improving remarks about discipline and presence of mind, and the natural fitness of some people for doing the right thing in an emergency. He might have said more, but all were drawn to the windows to watch the strife between the fire and the rain.

The fierce wind drove the smoke through the building, compelling the landlord and his wife to escape as best they could, and, for the time being, the victory seemed to be with the fire.

"Seems to me," said the blacksmith, somberly, "as if Crofield was going to pieces. This is the worst storm we ever had. The meeting-house is gone, and the hotel's going!"

Mary, at her window, was looking out in silence, but her face was bright rather than gloomy. Even if she was "only a girl," she had found an opportunity for once, and she had not proved unequal to it.