en, and buried them. Most of these were rescued; but
eighty-eight were killed. As the night came on, those watchers on
Andover Hill who could not join the rescuing parties, saw a strange
and fearful light at the north.

Where we were used to watching the beautiful belt of the lighted mills
blaze,--a zone of laughing fire from east to west, upon the horizon
bar,--a red and awful glare went up. The mill had taken fire. A
lantern, overturned in the hands of a man who was groping to save an
imprisoned life, had flashed to the cotton, or the wool, or the
oil with which the ruins were saturated. One of the historic
conflagrations of New England resulted.

With blanching cheeks we listened to the whispers that told us how the
mill-girls, caught in the ruins beyond hope of escape, began to sing.
They were used to singing, poor things, at their looms--mill-girls
always are--and their young souls took courage from the familiar sound
of one another's voices. They sang the hymns and songs which they had
learned in the schools and churches. No classical strains, no "music
for music's sake," ascended from that furnace; no ditty of love or
frolic; but the plain, religious outcries of the people: "Heaven is my
home," "Jesus, lover of my soul," and "Shall we gather at the river?"
Voice after voice dropped. The fire raced on. A few brave girls sang
still:

"Shall we gather at the river,
There to walk and worship ever?"

But the startled Merrimac rolled by, red as blood beneath the glare of
the burning mills, and it was left to the fire and the river to finish
the chorus.

At the time this tragedy occurred, I felt my share of its horror,
like other people; but no more than that. My brother, being of the
privileged sex, was sent over to see the scene; but I was not allowed
to go.

Years after, I cannot say just how many, the half-effaced negative
came back to form under the chemical of some new perception of the
significance of human tragedy.

It occurred to me to use the event as the basis of a story. To this
end I set forth to study the subject. I had heard nothing in those
days about "material," and conscience in the use of it, and little
enough about art. We did not talk about realism then. Of critical
phraseology I knew nothing; and of critical standards only what I had
observed by reading the best fiction. Poor novels and stories I
did not read. I do not remember being forbidden them; but, by that
parental art finer th