rom the boy. And
now the iron hook fell at his feet, and the fireman stood upon the step
with the rescued lad in his arms, just as the pent-up flames burst lurid
from the attic window, reaching with impotent fury for their prey. The
next moment they were safe upon the great ladder waiting to receive them
below.

Then such a shout went up! Men fell on each other's necks, and cried and
laughed at once. Strangers slapped one another on the back with
glistening faces, shook hands, and behaved generally like men gone
suddenly mad. Women wept in the street. The driver of a car stalled in
the crowd, who had stood through it all speechless, clutching the reins,
whipped his horses into a gallop and drove away, yelling like a
Comanche, to relieve his feelings. The boy and his rescuer were carried
across the street without anyone knowing how. Policemen forgot their
dignity and shouted with the rest. Fire, peril, terror, and loss were
alike forgotten in the one touch of nature that makes the whole world
kin.

Fireman John Binns was made captain of his crew, and the Bennett medal
was pinned on his coat on the next parade day.

JACOB A. RIIS

Whene'er a noble deed is wrought,
Whene'er is spoken a noble thought,
Our hearts in glad surprise
To higher levels rise.

LONGFELLOW

THE QUEST

There once was a restless boy
Who dwelt in a home by the sea,
Where the water danced for joy,
And the wind was glad and free;
But he said: "Good mother, O let me go!
For the dullest place in the world, I know,
Is this little brown house,
This old brown house,
Under the apple tree.

"I will travel east and west;
The loveliest homes I'll see;
And when I have found the best,
Dear mother, I'll come for thee.
I'll come for thee in a year and a day,
And joyfully then we'll haste away
From this little brown house,
This old brown house,
Under the apple tree."

So he travelled here and there,
But never content was he,
Though he saw in lands most fair
The costliest homes there be.
He something missed from the sea or sky,
Till he turned again with a wistful sigh
To the little brown house,
The old brown house,
Under the apple tree.

Then the mother saw and smiled,
While