But Susy can only wring her hands in hopeless despair. She has helped save the books, still she "expects they will burn up, somehow, on the road." Her pony has been trotting about through the night; his hair is singed, and she "presumes it will strike in and kill him." The world is, to Susy's view, one vast scene of lurid horrors. If she couldn't cry, she thinks she should certainly die.

But this strange night came to an end. Dreadful things may and do happen in this world, but, as a general rule, they do not last a great while.

The fire did its work, and then stopped. It was fearful while it raged, and it left a pitiful wreck; still, as Mrs. Parlin said, it was "not so bad but it might have been worse." "Nothing," she always declared, "ought to make us really unhappy except sin."

"And here we are, all alive," said she, with tearful eyes, as she tried to put her arms around the three little girls at once. "All alive and well! Let us thank G.o.d for that."

"I guess I shan't cry _much_ while I have my blessed mother to hold on to," said Prudy, pressing her cheek against Mrs. Parlin's belt-slide.

"Nor I neither," spoke up Dotty, very bravely, till a sudden spasm of recollection changed her tone, and she added, faintly, "If 'twasn't for my cunning little tea-set!"

"I shouldn't care a single thing about the fire," sobbed Susy, "if it hadn't burnt _our_ house up, you know. You see it was where we _lived_.

We had such good times in it, with the rooms as pleasant as you can think! Nothing in the world ever happened: and now that pony! O, dear, and my room where the sun rose! I don't know what's the matter with me, but _seems_ as if I should die!"

"And me, too," sighed Dotty. "I just about know that man threw my tea-set into the Back Cove; and now we haven't any home!"

"It is home where the heart is, children," said Mrs. Parlin, tenderly; but something choked her voice as she spoke.

Though she was never known, either then or afterwards, to murmur, still it is barely possible she may have felt the loss of her precious home as much as even Susy did.

For the present the family were to remain at Mr. Eastman's; and it was in the parlor chamber of that house that Mrs. Parlin and her three children were standing, glad to find themselves together once more, after the night of confusion.

Grandma Read, who was as patient as her daughter, "tried to gather into stillness," and settle herself as soon as possible to her Bible. But the change from the Sabbath-like quiet of her old room to the confusion of this noisy dwelling must have tried her severely.

Mr. and Mrs. Eastman, and Mr. and Mrs. Parlin, were busy enough from morning till night, day after day, searching for missing goods, and aiding the sufferers from the fire. The Eastman mansion was left to the tender mercies of the five children--the Parlins, and Florence, and Johnny.

Master Percy would probably look insulted if he were to be cla.s.sed among the children. In his younger days he had had his share in ringing people's door-bells and then running away; now, in his maturer years, he did not scruple to tease little folks, when they could be "tickled with a straw" held under the chin, or when they were easily vexed, and answered him back with an angry word or a furious scowl. He liked to torture his "cousin Dimple." He said she shot out quills like a little porcupine. She was a "regular brick," almost as smart as Johnny, and that was saying a great deal; for Percy regarded the youthful Johnny as a very promising child. He was sorry to have him corrected for trifling follies. If Percy had had the care of him, the little fellow would not have lived long, for the older brother quite approved of such amus.e.m.e.nts as crossing pins on the railroad track, running under horses' feet, and walking on the dizzy roof of a house.

Mr. Eastman was always very busy, and his wife had a deal of visiting to do, so it usually happened that Johnny had more liberty than was good for him.

Mrs. Parlin knew this, and did not like to have Dotty thrown very much in his society, but just now it certainly could not be avoided; Dotty's constant desire to "get out doors and run somewhere" seemed to be fully gratified, for Johnny despised the inside of a house more than she did, and they both roamed about during the day like a couple of gypsies.

Sometimes Prudy went with them, but their games were rather rough for her taste. Susy and Florence were generally together, painting with water-colors, pasting sc.r.a.pbooks, and doing a variety of things in which they did not care to have Prudy join. The dear little girl might have been lonely, and possibly grieved, if she had been anything but a "bird-child." As it was, she sang when she had no one to talk with, and, whether the rain fell or the sun shone, always awoke with a smile, and found the world as beautiful as a garden.

She amused herself by writing in her little red journal, which had come out of the fire unharmed. Here is her account of the tragedy:--

"_July 7th._ I ought to tell about the fire; but I can't write with mother's pen any more than Zip can write with a sponge.

"I am so sorry, but a boy fired a cracker. He didn't mean to burn up the city at all. He just touched it off for fun.

"There was going to be a procession, but I believe it didn't _process_. I never saw anything whiz and crack so in all my life!

The fire danced and ran all over the city as if it was alive! It burnt just as if it was glad of it. The trees are all black where the green was scorched off. You wouldn't think it was summer. It doesn't look like winter. Father says it looks like a graveyard.

"Dotty lost her tea-set. Susy thought she should faint away, but she didn't--we couldn't find the camphor bottle. A man saved six eggs and the pepper box.

"It was real too bad _grandma's_ room was burnt up! When I went into grandma's room I used to feel just like singing. Mother says that isn't so bad as wickedness. She says it is 'home where the heart is.'

"Dotty hasn't had any temper for five days. Finis."

Just about this time a letter came from Willowbrook, saying Mrs.

Clifford was quite ill, and asking Mrs. Parlin to go to her. Aunt Louisa said it was fortunate that the children could stay at their aunt Eastman's. She did not know that Mrs. Parlin left them there very reluctantly, having her own private fears that her youngest daughter might fall into mischief.

Dotty kissed her mother good by, and promised to be perfect; but Mrs.

Parlin knew too well how the child's resolutions were apt to wither away for want of root.

CHAPTER IV.

PLAYING HINDOO.

"Johnny, Johnny, come to the window, quick!" said Dotty; "see this bird!"

"I've seen birds before," replied her little cousin, coolly, and walking as slowly as possible.

"But this one peeps as if he was hurt; see how he pecks to get in."

"Don't you take him in!" exclaimed Angeline, the kitchen girl; "it's a bad sign to have birds come fluttering round a window."

"What do you mean by a _sign_?" asked Dotty, who had never heard of any silly superst.i.tions in her life.

"Let him alone," cried Johnny, "or you'll die before the week's out, sure's you live!"

Dotty laughed. "A bird can't make me die," said she, seizing the trembling little oriole, and holding him close to her bosom. "O, you birdie darling! Did your mamma go 'way off, and couldn't find a worm?

Dotty'll be your mamma, so she will."

She put him in a basket stuffed with rags, and hung over him tenderly for half an hour.

"You're bringing down trouble, I'm afraid, child," said Angeline, gravely, as she walked back and forth, doing her work.

Mrs. Parlin, away off at Willowbrook, was at that moment bathing Mrs.

Clifford's forehead. I think she might have dropped the sponge in dismay if she had known what pernicious nonsense was finding its way into Dotty's ears.

Just as Angeline was in the midst of a ghost story, Johnny rushed in again.

"Come," said he, shaking Dotty by the shoulders, "let's go play poison."

"O, no, Johnny. I'm hearing the nicest, awfullest story! And then it rains so, too!"

"Doesn't, either. Only sprinkles. And when it sprinkles, it's a _sure_ sign it isn't going to rain."

"Who told you so?"

"Your grandmother Read. She's a Quaker, and she can't lie. Come, Dot Parlin; if you don't like poison, come out and play soldier."

"I don't want to play a single thing; so there, now, Johnny Eastman!"

"Then you're a cross old party, miss."