Away went the engine and its allies, sweeping along men and boys, and also every able-bodied member of the Up-the-Ladder Club whose legs could carry him.  Down past shops and houses and farms rushed the crowd, pulling along several fat men who had grasped the rope.  By and by they came to a farmer in a red shirt who pointed his spectacles at them across the top-rail of the fence at the right of the road.

“Where’s the’ fire, squire?” excitedly asked the foreman.

“Fire?  I don’t know of fire,” replied the farmer, coolly, “at leastways, any fire that is worth puttin’ out.  I have got a bonfire in back here, and it was purty big, and its smoke you may have seen in the village.  If you want to stretch your muscle and soak your hose—­and that is about all you engine-people do—­you may come and play on my bonfire.”

“Come and play on you” shouted an angry voice.

“Put out him” screamed another.

“Play away, One,” bawled a third, giving the number of the engine as known at fires.

There was now a half-joking, half-angry comment on the “squire,” and there were enough there desirous of wetting down, not his bonfire, but its builder.  The foreman quieted the strife and the “Cataract” started for home.  A willingness was expressed to moisten “Miss Persnips’s place” because she had misled them, though it was unintentional on her part.

Some one sang out, “She can’t tell about smoke.  She has only one good eye, and t’other one is a glass eye.”

This put them all in a good-natured mood, and the “Cataract” went home.

Soon there was a fire serious enough to satisfy the most ardent of the company.  A milder style of weather had been prevailing after the late snow-storm.  The sun had put extra coal on its fires and melted all the snow.  Then came a wind that blew continuously two days, drying the grounds and the buildings.

“I notice, Somers,” said Dr. Tilton, “that you did not have good luck in finding a fire that last alarm, but if one is sounded now, I guess it will amount to something.  Fearful dry, it is getting to be.”

The doctor was a true prophet.  The next alarm did amount to something.  One morning about half past seven, there echoed in the narrow streets of Seamont a cry that plain meant bad news.  Will Somers heard, and might be said to have seen, that cry.  He had taken down the shutters of his employer’s store, and was hanging in the windows two very gaudily lettered placards, “A balm for all, Jenkins’s Soporific,” “The need of an aching world, Muggins’s Liniment.”  Will heard that magic cry, “Fire—­re—­re!” He turned and saw a man coming down the street.  He was not only coming, but running, his hat off, and his mouth open wide enough to take in a ten-cent loaf of brown bread, Will thought.

“Woolen mill on fire!”

“Woolen mill!” gasped Will, and his first thought was, “glory enough for one day.”