alled back from the
stoop where he was waiting; "perhaps Miss Lavinia has some in the house."

"Apples, yes, plenty; but for mercy's sake what for? You surely aren't
thinking of pelting the fire out with them!" she gasped, hurrying
downstairs and struggling to disentangle her eyeglasses from her bonnet
strings; a complication that was always happening at crucial moments,
such as picking out change in an elevated railway station, and thereby
blocking the crowd.

"No, apples to feed the fire horses; Barbara always does," Evan answered,
dashing down the basement stairs to the kitchen, and returning quickly
with a medley of apples and soup vegetables in a dish-towel bundle,
leaving the solemn cook speechlessly astonished.

Then we started off, Evan leading the way, and the procession straggling
after in Indian file; for the back streets were not well shovelled, and
to go two abreast meant that one foot of each was on a side hill. Evan
fairly dragged me along. Sylvia and Bradford, being fleet of foot, had no
difficulty in following, but Martin and Miss Lavinia had rather a bumpy
time of it. Still, as pretty much all the uncrippled inhabitants of the
district were going the same way, our flight was not conspicuous.

It was, as Evan had promised, a glorious fire! Long before we reached
the Hudson the sky rayed and flamed with all the smokeless change of the
Northern Lights. Once there, Evan piloted us through the densely packed
crowd to the side string-piece of a pier, Miss Lavinia giving little
shrieks the while, and begging not to be pushed into the water.

From this point the great stacks of lumber that made the giant bonfire
could be seen at the two points, from land and water side, where the
fire-boats were shooting streams from their well-aimed nozzles.

As usual, after running the steam-pumping engines as close as desirable
to the flames, the horses were detached, blanketed, and tied up safe from
harm, and we found a group of three great intelligent iron-gray beauties
close behind us, who accepted the contents of the dish-towel with almost
human appreciation, while a queer, wise, brown dog, an engine mascot, who
was perched on the back of the middle horse, shared the petting with a
politely matter-of-fact air.

"It is wonderful! I only wish I could see a little better," murmured Miss
Lavinia, who was short, and buried in the crowd.

"Why not stand on this barrel?" suggested Bradford, holding out his
hand.

"It