uilding as soon as the students did,
but two or three, in the east end away from the fire, lingered to
save a very few of their smaller possessions.

The students, once out, were not allowed to re-enter the building,
and they did not attempt to disobey, but formed a long fire line
which was soon lengthened by girls from other dormitories and
extended from the front of College Hall to the library. Very
few things above the first floor were saved, but many books,
pictures, and papers went down this long line of students to find
temporary shelter in the basement of the library. Associate
Professor Shackford, who wrote the account of the fire in the
College News, from which these details are taken, tells us how
Miss Pendleton, patrolling this busy fire line and questioning the
half-clad workers, was met with the immediate response, even from
those who were still barefooted, "I'm perfectly comfortable,
Miss Pendleton", "I'm perfectly all right, Miss Pendleton." Miss
Shackford adds:

"At about five o'clock, a person coming from the hill saw
College Hall burning between the dining-room and Center,
apparently from the third floor up to the roof, in high, clear
flames with very little smoke. Suddenly the whole top seemed
to catch fire at once, and the blaze rushed downward and upward,
leaping in the dull gray atmosphere of a foggy morning. With
a terrific crash the roof fell in, and soon every window in the
front of College Hall was filled with roaring flames, surging
toward the east, framed in the dark red brick wall which served
to accentuate the lurid glow that had seized and held a building
almost one eighth of a mile long. The roar of devastating fury,
the crackle of brands, the smell of burning wood and melting iron,
filled the air, but almost no sound came from the human beings who
saw the irrepressible blaze consume everything but the brick walls.

"The old library and the chapel were soon filled with great billows
of flame, which, finding more space for action, made a spectacle
of majestic but awful splendor. Eddies of fire crept along the
black-walnut bookcases, and all that dark framework of our beloved
old library. By great strides the blaze advanced, until innumerable
curling, writhing flames were rioting all through a spot always
hushed 'in the quiet and still air of delightful studies.' The
fire raged across the walls, in and around the sides and the
beautiful curving tops of the windows that for so