Won two prizes at the tournament, just
with that truck. But if they had that hand-engine now though!
"Up with her! Down with her!" Have that fire out in no time!
They're not trying to save the barns. They're a dead loss. What
little water they can get from the cisterns and wells around -
hasn't it been dry? - they are using to try to save Swope's house,
and the one next to it. Is that where Lonny Wheeler lives? I
knew it was up this way somewhere. Don't he look ridiculous,
sitting up there a-straddle of his ridgepole, with a tin-cup? A
tin-cup, if you please. Over this way a little. See better.
They're wetting down the roof. Line of fellows passing buckets to
the ladder, and a line up the ladder. What big sparks those are!
Puts you in mind of Fourth of July. How the roof steams! Must be
hot up there.
O-o-o-oh!
A universal indrawn breath from all spectators proclaims their
horror. One of the men on the roof missed his footing and slipped,
rolling over and over till he reached the roof of the porch, where
he spread-eagled for a fall. The women begin to moan. Some poor
fellow gone to his death. Or, if he be so lucky as to miss death
itself, he is doomed to languish all his days a helpless cripple.
Like enough the sole support of an aged mother; or perhaps his
wife is sitting up for him at home now, tiptoeing into the bedroom
every little while to look at the sleeping children.
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