The Tree was coming--Mistress Mary said so; and bless my heart, you might possibly meddle with the revolution of the earth around the sun, or induce some weak-minded planet to go the wrong way, but you would be helpless to reverse one of Mistress Mary's promises! They were as fixed and as unchangeable as the laws of the Medes and Persians, and there was a record of their fulfilment indelibly written in the memories of two hundred small personages--personages in whom adult caprice and flexibility of conduct had bred a tendency to suspicion.

The Tree, therefore, had been coming for a fortnight, and on the 22nd it came! Neither did it come alone, for it was accompanied by a forest of holly and mistletoe, and ropes of evergreen, and wreaths and garlands of laurel, and green stars by the dozen. And in a great box, at present hidden from the children, were heaps of candles, silver and crystal baubles, powdered snowflakes, gla.s.s icicles, gilded nuts, parti-coloured spheres, cornucopias full of goodies, and, above all, two wonderful Christmas angels, and a snow-white dove!

Neither tree, nor garlands, nor box contained any hint of the donor, to the great disappointment of the neophytes. Rhoda had an idea, for Cupid had 'clapped her i' the shoulder,' and her intuitions were preternaturally keen just now. Mary almost knew, though she had never been in love in her life, and her faculties were working only in their every-day fashion; but she was not in the least surprised when she drew a letter from under the white dove's wing. Seeing that it was addressed to her, she waited until everybody had gone, and sat under the pepper-tree in the deserted playground, where she might read it in solitude.

'DEAR MISTRESS MARY,' it said, 'do you care to hear of my life?

"Pas Ewig-Weibliche Zieht uns hinan,"

and I am growing olives. Do you remember what the Spanish monk said to the tree that he pruned, and that cried out under his hook? "It is not beauty that is wanted of you, nor shade, but olives." The sun is hot, and it has not rained for many a long week, it seems to me, but the dew of your influence falls ever sweet and fresh on the dust of my daily task.

'Enclosed please find the wherewithal for Lisa's next step higher.

As she needs more it will come. I give it for sheer grat.i.tude, as the good folk gave their pennies to Pastor Von Bodelschwingh. Why am I grateful? For your existence, to be sure! I had lived my life haunted by the feeling that there was such a woman, and finally the mysterious wind of destiny blew me to her, "as the tempest brings the rose-tree to the pollard willow."

'Do not be troubled about me, little mother-of-many! There was once upon a time a common mallow by the roadside, and being touched by Mohammed's garment as he pa.s.sed, it was changed at once into a geranium; and best of all, it remained a geranium for ever after.

'YOUR SOLITARY.'

CHAPTER XVI--CLEANSING FIRES

It was the afternoon of the day before Christmas, and all the little people had gone home, leaving the room vacant for the decking of the Wonderful Tree. Edith, Helen, and others were perched on step- ladders, festooning garlands and wreaths from window to window and post to post. Mary and Rhoda were hanging burdens of joy among the green branches of the tree.

The room began to look more and more lovely as the evergreen stars were hung by scarlet ribbons in each of the twelve windows, and the picture-frames were crowned with holly branches. Then Mistress Mary was elevated to a great height on a pyramid of tables and chairs, and suspended the two Christmas angels by invisible wires from the ceiling. When the chorus of admiration had subsided, she took the white dove from Rhoda's upstretched hands (and what a charming Christmas picture they made--the eager, upturned rosy face of the one, the gracious fairness of the other!), and laying its soft breast against her cheek for a moment, perched it on the topmost branch of waving green with a thought of 'Mr. Man,' and a hope that the blessed day might bring him a t.i.the of the cheer he had given them. The effect of the dove and the angels was so electrical that all the fresh young voices burst into the chorus of the children's hymn:

'He was born upon this day In David's town so far away, He the good and loving One, Mary's ever-blessed Son.

Let us all our voices lend, For he was the children's Friend, He so lovely, He so mild, Jesus, blessed Christmas Child!'

As the last line of the chorus floated through the open windows, an alarm of fire sounded, followed by a jangle of bells and a rumble of patrol wagons. On going to the west window, Edith saw a blaze of red light against the sky, far in the distance, in the direction of Lone Mountain. Soon after, almost on the heels of the first, came another alarm with its attendant clangings, its cries of 'Fire!' its chatterings and conjectures, its rushing of small boys in all directions, its tread of hurrying policemen, its hasty flinging up of windows and grouping of heads therein.

The girls were too busy labelling the children's gifts to listen attentively to the confused clamour in the streets,--fires were common enough in a city built of wood; but when, half an hour after the first and second alarms, a third sounded, they concluded it must be a conflagration, and Rhoda, dropping her nuts and cornucopias, ran to the corner for news. She was back again almost immediately, excited and breathless.

'Oh, Mary!' she exclaimed, her hand on her panting side, 'unless they are mistaken, it is three separate fires: one, a livery-stable and carriage-house out towards Lone Mountain; another fearful one on Telegraph Hill--a whole block of houses, and they haven't had enough help there because of the Lone Mountain fire; now there's a third alarm, and they say it's at the corner of Sixth and Dutch streets.

If it is, we have a tenement house next door; isn't that clothing- place on the corner? Yes, I know it is; make haste! Edith and Helen will watch the Christmas things.'

Mary did not need to be told to hasten. She had her hat in her hand and was on the sidewalk before Rhoda had fairly finished her sentence.

They hurried through the streets, guided by the cloud of smoke that gushed from the top of a building in the near distance. Almost everybody was running in the opposite direction, attracted by the Telegraph Hill fire that flamed vermilion and gold against the grey sky, looking from its elevation like a mammoth bonfire, or like a hundred sunsets ma.s.sed in one lurid pile of colour.

'Is it the Golden Gate tenement house?' they asked of the neighbourhood locksmith, who was walking rapidly towards them.

'No, it's the coat factory next door,' he answered hurredly.

''Twouldn't be so much of a blaze if they could get the fire company here to put it out before it gets headway; but it's one o' those blind fires that's been sizzling away inside the walls for an hour.

The folks didn't know they was afire till a girl ran in and told 'em- -your Lisa it was,--and they didn't believe her at first; but it warn't a minute before the flames burst right through the plastering in half a dozen places to once. I tell you they just dropped everything where it was and run for their lives. There warn't but one man on the premises, and he was such a blamed fool he wasted five minutes trying to turn the alarm into the letter-box on the lamp- post, 'stead of the right one alongside. I'm going home for some tools--Hullo! there's the flames coming through one corner o' the roof; that's the last o' the factory, I guess; but it ain't much loss, any way; it's a regular sweatin'-shop. They'll let it go now, and try to save the buildings each side of it--that's what they'll do.'

That is what they were doing when Mary and Rhoda broke away from the voluble locksmith in the middle of his discourse and neared the scene of excitement. The firemen had not yet come, though it was rumoured that a detachment was on the way. All the occupants of the tenement house were taking their goods and chattels out--running down the narrow stairways with feather-beds, dropping clocks and china ornaments from the windows, and endangering their lives by crawling down the fire-escapes with small articles of no value. Men were scarce at that hour in that locality, but there was a good contingent of small shopkeepers and gentlemen-of-steady-leisure, who were on the roof pouring-water over wet blankets and comforters and carpets. A crazy-looking woman in the fourth story kept dipping a child's handkerchief in and out of a bowl of water and wrapping it about a tomato-can with a rosebush planted in it. Another, very much intoxicated, leaned from her window, and, regarding the whole matter as an agreeable entertainment, called down humorous remarks and ribald jokes to the oblivious audience. There was an improvised hook-and-ladder company pouring water where it was least needed, and a zealous self-appointed commanding officer who did nothing but shout contradictory orders; but as n.o.body obeyed them, and every man did just as he was inclined, it did not make any substantial difference in the result.

Mary and Rhoda made their way through the ma.s.s of interested spectators, not so many here as on the cooler side of the street.

Where was Lisa? That was the first, indeed the only question. How had she come there? Where had she gone? There was a Babel of confusion, but nothing like the uproar that would have been heard had not part of the district's population fled to the more interesting fire, and had not the whole thing been so quiet and so lightning- quick in its progress. The whole scene now burst upon their view. A few hara.s.sed policemen had stretched ropes across the street, and were trying to keep back the rebellious ones in the crowd who ever and anon would struggle under the line and have to be beaten back by force.

As Mary and Rhoda approached, a group on the outskirts cried out, 'Here she is! 'Tain't more 'n a minute sence they went to tell her!

Here she is now!'

The expected fire-brigade could hardly be called 'she,' Mary thought, as she glanced over her shoulder. She could see no special reason for any interest in her own movements. She took advantage of the parting of the crowd, however, and as she made her way she heard, as in a waking dream, disjointed sentences that had no meaning at first, but being pieced together grew finally into an awful whole.

'Why didn't the factory girls bring 'em out? Didn't know they was there?'

'Say, one of 'em was saved, warn't it?'

'Which one of 'em did she get down before the roof caught?'

'No, 'tain't no such thing; the manager's across the bay; she gave the alarm herself.'

'She didn't know they was in there; I bet yer they'd run and hid, and she was hunting 'em when she seen the smoke.'

'Yes, she did; she dropped the girl twin out of the second-story window into Abe Isaac's arms, but she didn't know the boy was in the building till just now, and they can't hardly hold her.'

'She's foolish, anyhow, ain't she?'

Mary staggered beyond Rhoda to the front of the crowd.

'Let me under the rope!' she cried, with a mother's very wail in her tone--'let me under the rope, for G.o.d's sake! They're my children!'

At this moment she heard a stentorian voice call to some one, 'Wait a minute till the firemen get here, and they'll go for him! Come back, girl, d-n you! you shan't go!'

'Wait? No! NOT wait!' cried Lisa, tearing herself dexterously from the policeman's clutches, and dashing like a whirlwind up the tottering stairway before any one else could gather presence of mind to seize and detain her.

Pacific was safe on the pavement, but she had only a moment before been flung from those flaming windows, and her terrified shrieks rent the air. The crowd gave a long-drawn groan, and mothers turned their eyes away and shivered. n.o.body followed Marm Lisa up that flaming path of death and duty: it was no use flinging a good life after a worthless one.

'Fool! crazy fool!' people e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed, with tears of reverence in their eyes.

'Darling, splendid fool!' cried Mary. 'Fool worth all the wise ones among us!'

'He that loseth his life for My sake shall find it!' said a pious Methodist cobbler with a patched boot under his arm.

In the eternity of waiting that was numbered really but in seconds, a burly policeman beckoned four men and gave them a big old-fashioned counterpane that some one had offered, telling them to stand ready for whatever might happen.

'Come closer, boys,' said one of them, wetting his hat in a tub of water; 'if we take a little scorchin' doin' this now, we may git it cooler in the next world!'

'Amen! Trust the Lord!' said the cobbler; and just then Marm Lisa appeared at one of the top windows with a child in her arms. No one else could have recognised Atlantic in the smoke, but Rhoda and Mary knew the round cropped head and the familiar blue gingham ap.r.o.n.