"You ought not to do it, Joe. O dear me, do stop," implored David, clasping his hands.

"I'm big enough," declared Joel, strutting around and pulling at the things that Polly said were dampers--though why they should be damp, when there was a fire in the stove every day, he never could see. "And when Polly sees that I can make it as good's she can, she'll let me do it every day. Yes, sir-_ree!_" With that he drew the match, and held it to an end of the paper, sticking up. And forgetting to put back the cover, he raced off to the wood, shed again for another armful of kindling.

_"Joel!"_ screamed David, left behind in the kitchen. "Come!

Oh, we're afire! We're afire!"

Joel dropped his kindlings and the heavier pieces of wood he had gathered up, and went like a shot back to the stove again. Great tongues of flame were shooting up toward the dingy ceiling.

"Why didn't you put the cover on?" cried he, terribly frightened, for he began to think, after all, perhaps it would be quite as well to let Polly make the fire. "It'll be all right, I'll have it on in a minute," suiting the action to the word, as he stuck the lifter into the cover and advanced to the stove.

"Oh, Joe, you'll be burnt up," cried David, in a dreadful voice, and wringing his hands.

Joel made a dash, but the flames swirled out at him, so he backed off.

"You can't do it," screamed Davie; "don't try it, Joe, you'll be all burnt up."

When Davie said that he couldn't do it, Joel made up his mind that he would. Besides, the very thought of the little brown house taking fire turned him desperate with fright; so he made a second dash, and somehow, he never could tell what made it, the cover slid on, and the flames muttered away to themselves inside, in a smothered kind of way, and there they were, shut up as tight as could be.

"'Twas just as easy as nothing," said Joel, drawing a long breath, and beginning to strut up and down, still carrying the cover-lifter. "You're such a 'fraid-cat, Dave," he added scornfully.

David was beyond caring whether or no he was called a 'fraid-cat, being stiff with fright, so Joel strutted away to his heart's content. "Now I must put in more wood," he declared, and, twitching off the cover, he crammed the stove as full as it would hold, on top of the blazing ma.s.s. Then he wiggled the dampers again, to suit him, paying particular attention to the little one in the pipe, then wiped his grimy hands, in great satisfaction, on his trousers.

"You see 'tisn't anything to make a fire," he observed to David; "an I'm goin' to build it every single day, after this. Polly'll be so s'prised. Now come on, Dave, let's go an' play," and Joel gave a long and restful stretch.

Little David, seeing the stove behaving so well, gave a sigh of relief, and coming slowly out of his fright, clattered after Joel, and soon they were down back of the house, where they had scooped out the ground, and filling it with water, had made what they called a pond. Here they now began to sail boats made out of bits of paper.

"Hi--there--you!" shouted a harsh voice. Joel and David, absorbed in getting their boats across the pond without running into each other, didn't hear. "_Hi!_" yelled the voice again, "your house is afire!"

Joel lifted his black head and stared. "Come here, you!"

screamed a man, jumping out of a wagon in the middle of the road, in front of the little brown house. He was big and redheaded, and he held a whip in his hand.

This he shook frantically up toward the roof, screaming, _"Your house is afire!"_

Sure enough. Great volumes of smoke came pouring out of the chimney, which wasn't any too good, and once in a while a tongue of flame would sweep out, licking the sides of the bricks, as much as to say, "You can't shut me up entirely, you see." Oh, how merrily they danced!

[Ill.u.s.tration: "''TWAS JUST AS EASY AS NOTHING,' SAID JOEL"]

"Get a bucket. Step lively, if you want to save your house!"

roared the man at Joel, who took one good look at the chimney, then sprang for Mamsie's pail. "Get something, Dave," he screamed, "and bring some water."

Now that the fire had really come, David, strange to say, felt all his fright dropping from him. It was as if Mamsie said, "Save the little brown house, dears," and he rushed on the wings of the wind over down across the lane, and helped himself to Grandma Bascom's big bucket, always standing on a bench beside her kitchen door. And, with it almost full of water, he soon stood by the big red-headed man's side.

"You're a likely-headed pair o' chaps," said the man, as Joel dashed up with his pail, which he hadn't been able to find at once, as Mamsie had put some cloth she was going to bleach into it, and set it in the woodshed. "Now, then, I must climb the roof, an' you two boys must keep a-handin' up th' water as smart as you can."

"Oh, I'm goin' up on the roof," cried Joel, and springing up the gutter-pipe.

"Do ye think ye kin?" asked the man. But Joel was already halfway up. And presently the first pail of water was handed up, and splash it went on the flames, by this time coming out very lively at the chimney-top. But it didn't seem to do any good, only to sizzle and siss, for just as soon as a pailful of water was dashed on, out they popped again, as bright as ever. A boy, coming whistling down the road, stopped suddenly, took one look, and ran like lightning over across the fields on a short cut.

"Fire--_fire!_" he screamed, and pretty soon, by dint of jumping stone walls and fences, he got into the street, at the end of which stood Mr. Atkins' grocery store. "Fire--_fire!_" he bawled every step of the way. "Where--where?" cried the people at the store, rushing to the door and craning their necks, as he flew by, intent on getting to the fire-engine house, so as to run back with the men who dragged the machine by the ropes.

"At the Pepperses little brown house," bawled the boy, plunging on.

"Now, Polly," Mr. Atkins was just saying, when the boy's scream was heard, "you tell your Ma she needn't hurry about these coats.

I guess that paper'll cover 'em, if I put another knot in th' string.

My land! what's that!--"

"_Fire! Fire!_" the boy was bawling all along the street.

"It's the Pepperses little brown house."

Somebody said, "Poor children." Others, "Don't let 'em hear,"

"Too late!" and various other things.

"Come, Phronsie," said Polly, hoa.r.s.ely, seizing the little fat hand. Phronsie, who was regarding some very pink and white sticks in a big candy jar on the shelf, tore her gaze away, and followed obediently as Polly pulled her along to the door.

"Oh, Polly, you hurt me," she said in a grieved way.

"Here, I'll take you," cried an old farmer with a long beard that looked like a bunch of hay, and he seized Phronsie and set her in his big wagon. Polly hopped in beside. "Don't be scart.

We'll all go down and help," screamed a half dozen voices after her. Rattle--rattle--clang came the fire-engine, the boy who had brought the news having secured one of the most important places at one of the long ropes. And away they went, the procession gaining in length and strength at each step, till it seemed as if all Badgertown were on the road and bound for the little brown house.

The big red-headed man had dashed up to the roof by the side of Joel. "You better go down and hand water," he said, "an' bring the axe, we may have to cut away th' ruf." Joel, knowing it was worse than useless to disobey, slid down, and got the axe first, to have it ready--oh, dreadful thought!--to cut the little brown house with; and then the two buckets, as full as they could be lifted, went up, and came down empty. Up and down. Up and down.

"Here come th' folks," yelled the man on the roof. "Now we're all right. Don't you be scart, boys, th' fire-engine's comin'."

None too soon! A little fork of flame was just beginning to pop its head out between the shingles close to the chimney, as if to say, "You really needn't think you are going to keep us shut up." Up clattered the fire-engine with a dreadful noise into the back yard, which suddenly seemed to be full of people of all sizes. Joel, when he saw the firemen on hand, sprang for the roof again. This time he staggered up with his bucket of water.

"Oh, Joel!" He looked down and saw, as well as he could, for something seemed to be the matter with his eyes, Polly's face.

Now that the danger was all over, for of course the fire-engine and all those people would save the little brown house, Polly was the last person whom Joel really wanted to see. And he busied himself in helping to haul up the water-buckets, that now came up pretty lively as the boys filled them and handed them to the firemen.

"You'd better get down," said more than one fireman. The roof now seemed to swarm with them.

"I ain't goin' to," said Joel, obstinately, reaching out for another bucket; "it's our house, so there!"

"Let him alone," said the big red-headed man, "he'll work as smart as any two of ye men. If it hadn't 'a' been for him and that one there," pointing with a grimy thumb to David on the ground, still patiently getting water and handing up his bucket, "we'd 'a' been all burnt up, by this time."

Joel's face got fiery red, all through the s.m.u.t and grime. "If it hadn't been for me!" and down went his black head. "Would Mamsie and Polly ever, ever forgive him?"

"Oh, Joel," screamed Polly from the ground, looking at him piteously, "do come down, dear!" But he really didn't hear now.

It seemed to him if he didn't work to the very last, he could never look Mamsie in the face again, so he was now on the other side of the chimney, where the fire was the hottest.

"It's an even chance, if we save it," Joel heard one of the firemen say; "it's got in between the joints. See!"

"Then we've got to cut just that spot," said the big red-headed man, who, by reason of being on hand first, was considered to be the leader, and he swung his axe over his head. "Crash!" went the little brown roof. At the sound, Polly dragged Phronsie over to David's side.

"Now, then, in with the water lively, boys, and splash her out,"

cried the big red-headed man, who very much liked being a leader.

And thereupon he stopped working, and set the others at it in such a brisk fashion that the water ran down in perfect rivers all over the roof, one or two of the streams soaking through, to drop into Ben's and Joel's and David's bedroom in the loft.

"It's out! It's out!" bawled some of the firemen on the roof to the men and boys. "You don't need to send up any more water."