nauseating smoke. The fire
having swept entirely through the library, was burning the front porch.
My escape by way of the stairway was cut off. Blinded and gasping I gave
up the search for clothes and turned back into my study.

I was not in the least scared; on the contrary, I was filled with a
kind of fatalistic rage. In imagination I saw the old house, with all
that it meant to me, in ruins. I saw the great elms and maples scorched,
dead, the tall black locust burned to a ship's mast. As I peered from
the window, a neighbor called earnestly, "You'd better get off there;
the whole house is going."

From the window I could see the villagers rapidly assembling, and not
knowing how far advanced the flames might be I yielded to the advice of
my friend, and swinging myself from the window dropped to the ground.

My next care was for the children. I could hear them crying frantically
for "papa!" and I hurried to where they stood cowering in the door of
the barn. "O, papa, put it out. I don't want it to burn. _Put it out!_"
moaned Mary Isabel with passionate intensity.

Her faith in her father had an infinite pathos at the moment. She loved
the house. It was a part of her very brain and blood. To have it burn
was a kind of outrage. Little Connie, five years old, with chattering
teeth, joined her pleading cry, "_Can't_ you put it out, papa?" she
asked piteously.

"No," I answered sadly. "Papa can not put it out. Nobody can. You must
say good-by to our dear old home."

Wrapping a quilt about her I started across the road toward my
neighbor's porch. The yard was full of my fellow-citizens, and young men
were heroically dragging out smoking furniture from the lower floor,
while over in the Sander's yard piles of books, bedding and furniture
were accumulating. It was all curiously familiar and typical.

In the full belief that the homestead would soon be a heap of charcoal,
we took the children back into our friend's dining-room. "Pull down the
curtain," entreated Zulime, "we don't want to see the old place go."

Helpless for lack of street clothing, with my children on my knees, I
sat in silence, noting the flickering glare of the light on the walls,
and hearing the shouts of the firemen and the sound of their axes.

Huldah, our neighbor's daughter, entered. "They're checking it!" she
exclaimed. "It is under control."

This seemed incredible, but it was confirmed by George Dudley, who came
in bringing my shoes and a