FullReads

VIII

Through smoke, under falling cinders, and by distracted and fleeing households I went. The moment I turned the second corner I espied the house. It was already half a square from the oncoming fire, but on the northern side of the street, just out of its probable track and not in great danger except from sparks. But it was old and roofed with shingles; a decrepit Creole cottage sitting under dense cedars in a tangle of rose and honeysuckle vines, and strangely beautified by a flood of smoke-dimmed yellow sunlight.

As I hurried forward, several men and boys came from the opposite direction at a run and an engine followed them, jouncing and tilting across the sidewalk opposite the little asylum, into a yard, to draw from a fresh well. Their leader was a sight that drew all eyes. He was coatless and hatless; his thin cotton shirt, with its sleeves rolled up to the elbows, was torn almost off his shaggy breast, his trousers were drenched with water and a rude bandage round his head was soaked with blood. He carried an axe. The throng shut him from my sight, but I ran to the spot and saw him again standing before the engine horses with his back close to their heads. A strong, high board fence shut them off from the well and against it stood the owner of the property, pale as death, guarding the precious water with a shotgun at full cock. I heard him say:

“The first fellow that touches this fence—-“

But he did not finish. Quicker than his gun could flash and bang harmlessly in the air the man before him had dropped the axe and leaped upon him with the roar of a lion. The empty gun flew one way and its owner another and almost before either struck the ground the axe was swinging and crashing into the fence.

As presently the engine rolled through the gap and shouting men backed her to the edge of the well, the big axeman paused to wipe the streaming sweat from his begrimed face with his arm. I clutched him.

“Manouvrier!”

A smile of recognition shone for an instant and vanished as I added,

“Come to your own house! Come, you can’t save it here.”

He turned a quick, wild look at the fire, seized me by the arm and with a gaze of deepest gratitude, asked:

“You tryin’ save her?”

“I’ll do anything I can.”

“Oh, dass right!” His face was full of mingled joy and pain. “You go yondeh–mek yo’ possible!” We were hurrying to the street–“Oh, yass, faw God’s sake go, mek yo’ possible!”

“But, Manouvrier, you must come too! Where’s your wife? The chief danger to your house isn’t here, it’s where the fire’s between it and the wind!”

His answer was a look of anguish. “Good God! my fran’. We come yondeh so quick we can! But–foudre tonnerre!–look that house here fill’ with ba-bee’! What we goin’ do? Those Sister’ can’t climb on roof with bocket’ wateh. You see I got half-dozen boy’ up yondeh; if I go ‘way they dis-cend and run off at the fire, spark’ fall on roof an’–” his thumb flew out.

“Sparks! Heavens! Manouvrier, your house is in the path of the flames!”

The man flew at me and hung over me, his strong locks shaking, his great black fist uplifted and the only tears in his eyes I ever saw there. “Damnession! She’s not mine! I trade her to God faw these one! Go! tell him she’s his, he kin burn her if he feel like’!” He gave a half laugh, fresh witness of his distress, and went into the gate of the asylum.

I smiled–what could I do?–and was turning away, when I saw the chief of the fire department. It took but one moment to tell him my want, and in another he had put the cottage roof under the charge of four of his men with instructions not to leave it till the danger was past or the house burning. The engine near us had drawn the well dry and was coming away. He met it, pointed to where, beneath swirling billows of black smoke, the pretty gable of the taxidermist’s house shone like a white sail against a thundercloud, gave orders and disappeared.