h.

Through the wide gate of the hotel barn-yard dashed the blacksmith and
his son, with their ladder, at the moment when Mrs. Livermore came out
at the kitchen door, wiping a plate. All the other inmates of the
hotel were gathered around the long table in the dining-hall, and they
were too busy with pie and different kinds of pudding, to notice
anything outdoors.

"Where is the fire, Mr. Ogden?" she said, in a fatigued tone.

"The fire's on your roof, close to the chimney," said the blacksmith.
"May be we can put it out, if we're quick about it. Call everybody to
hand up water."

Up went a pair of hands, and out came a great scream. Another shrill
scream and another, followed in quick succession, and the plate she had
held, fell and was shivered into fragments on the stone door-step.

"Foi-re! Foi-re! Foi-re-re-re!" yelled the hotel cook. "The house is
a-bur-rnin'! Wa-ter! Waw-aw-ter!"

The doors to passage-ways of the hotel were open, and in a second more
her cry was taken up by voices that sent the substance of it ringing
through the dining-hall.

Plates fell from the hands of waiters, coffee-cups were upset, chairs
were overturned, all manner of voices caught up the alarm.

It would have been a very serious matter but for the promptness of Jack
Ogden and his very cool father. The ladder was planted and climbed,
there was a quick dash along the low but high-ridged roof of the
kitchen addition of the hotel,--the rope was put around Jack's waist,
and then he was able safely to use both hands in pouring water from the
pails around the foot of the chimney. Other feet came fast to the foot
of the ladder. More went tramping into the rooms under the roof. The
pumps in the kitchen and in the barn-yard were worked with frantic
energy; pail after pail was carried upstairs and up the ladder; water
was thrown in all directions; nothing was left undone that could be
done, and a great many things were done that seemed hardly possible.

"Hot work, Jack," said his father. "It's a-gaining on us. Glad they'd
all about got through dinner,--though Livermore tells me he's insured."

"I can stand it," said Jack. "They have steam fire-engines in the
city, though. Oh, but wouldn't I like to see one at work, once. I'd
like to be a fireman!"

"That's about what you are, just now," said his father, and then he
turned toward the ladder and shouted:

"Hurry up that water! Quick, now! Bring an axe! I want to smas