LITMIR.BIZ

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ready to break into flame at any moment.

      Mr. Harris was a man of quick action, but he paused a moment to consider.

      He couldn't go up the stairs, they were ready to give way at a touch. He dared not open the front door, or, indeed, any door that might create a draught which would fan the stairs into a flame.

      So he decided he must rouse the sleepers up-stairs, and then jump out of the music-room window and run to the tent to get the assistance of the two boys who were sleeping there.

      Being a stranger in the house, he knew of no other stairway, and knew nothing of the servants or where they might be.

      "Mr. Barlow,--fire! Mr. Barlow!" he screamed. "Fire! Mr. Carleton, Fanny!" but no one answered.

      At last Patty was wakened by his voice and ran out in the upper hall. The draught of her opening door started the flames a little, and when she looked over the banister, it was into a well of fire.

      Before she could say a word, Mr. Harris called up to her. "Patty," he said, "keep your senses, and help all you can. I think the fire is only in the staircase, and if so, we can get everybody safely out of their own windows. Tell this to your uncle, and then tell the others. I'm going after Bob."

      Mr. Harris disappeared, and Patty bravely resisted her inclination to scream; instead, she ran into her uncle's room and shook him awake, saying, "Uncle Ted, the stairs are all burnt up, but it doesn't matter, you can get out of the windows."

      Then she ran back and wakened Bumble and Nan, saying, "Girls, the house is on fire, but let's be real sensible and not get burned up. Put on your dressing-gowns, and then we must go and tell the ethers."

      As she talked Patty was slipping on her dressing-gown, and then she caught up her mother's picture and wrapped it in a bath-towel, and with the little bundle in her hand she ran back to the hall where she met Uncle Ted.

      "Which room are the Carletons in, Patty?" She told him, and then Bob shouted up from below, "We've got the old Babcock extinguisher, dad, and we're making it tell on the fire. Can't you throw on some water up there? And tell all the people to go out on the balconies and we'll take 'em down all right. And I say, Patty, get my camera out of my room, will you? I don't want anything to happen to that."

      "All right," said Patty, and she ran for the camera. In Bob's room she found Miss Todd just waking up.

      "Get up, Miss Todd," she cried; "the house is on fire and your Mr. Harris is putting it out, and he says for you to jump out of the window."

      "Oh," screamed Miss Fanny, hopping out of bed and rushing wildly around the room, "which window?"

      "Any window," said Patty, who was hunting in the closet for the camera.

      So Miss Todd, half unconscious of what she was doing, but with a blind intention of obeying the orders of her fiancé, climbed over a window sill and jumped out.

      As a veranda ran all around the second-story of the Hurly-Burly, she found herself standing just outside her window on a very substantial balcony and feeling decidedly chilly in the night air.

      "Here are some clothes," said Patty, grabbing up whatever came handy, and putting them out the window to Miss Todd. "Is there anything you want saved particularly?"

      For Patty had taken a pillow-case from its pillow, and in it had placed the bundle containing her mother's picture, and Bob's camera.

      "Yes," said Miss Todd; "that book of poems,--it was Jim's first gift to me,--oh, and my hat."

      "All right," said Patty, and she put the book in her pillow-case bag, but the hat, being large and feathery she put on her head.

      Then Patty went to Gertrude Carleton's room. She found that fragile bit of humanity sleeping peacefully, and she hated to startle her.

      But the excitement was growing greater. People were running about in all directions, and the flames, though still confined to the staircase, were liable to spread further at any moment. So Patty decided to break the news gently to the frail Gertrude, and she touched her softly on the shoulder.

      "Gertrude, dear," she said, "if the house should get on fire, what would you want to save most?"

      "My shoes," said Gertrude, promptly, awake and alert in an instant. "Here they are."

      She reached over the side of the bed, and grasped her dainty little patent-leather boots, which she gave to Patty.

      "Very well," said Patty, putting them in her bag, "and now you'd better get up and dress, for the house may get on fire to-night. Come, I'll help you, for I smell smoke now."

      "Where are you going with your hat on?" asked Gertrude, much bewildered, but still making an expeditious toilette.

      "Nowhere," said Patty. "I'm collecting valuables; this is Miss Todd's hat. I must go now. When you're ready, step out of your window on to the balcony, and they'll take you down by ladders or something, I guess."

      Patty went out into the hall, and found that the fire was partly under control. Uncle Ted and Mr. Carleton were pouring buckets of water on it, which they brought from the bathroom where Bumble was helping fill the buckets.

      Down-stairs, Mr. Harris and the two boys were using hand grenades, an old fire extinguisher, and sundry other patented means of putting out fires. There was much yelling of orders going on, but very little obeying of the same, and each man seemed to be working with a will in his own way.

      Patty went into her Aunt Grace's room, and found that lady dressed in her best attire.

      "I thought I'd put on this gown," she said. "Ted says we'll all be saved; but then you never can tell how a fire may break out somewhere else and burn up all your wardrobe. So I'll have this, anyway, and it's my best gown. Ted told me to stay in this room and not move until he came after me. Is the fire burning the hall carpet much?"

      "Yes, quite a good deal; but they've spilled so much water on it that it's all wet, and I reckon that will spoil it more than the fire. But, Aunt Grace, what do you want to save? The house may all burn up, you know, and I'm trying to save the most valuable things. I've this pillow-case nearly full, now."

      "Oh, what a good idea! Well, I wish you'd put in that photograph album, and my set of coral jewelry, and my eye-glasses; and please get the box of old letters that's on the highest shelf in that cupboard. Oh, and here's Uncle Ted's bank-book, we must save that."

      "Now, Grace," said Uncle Ted, himself, appearing in the doorway, "the fire is pretty well under control; that Harris is a good fellow, and no mistake. But as the flames may break out again, I mean to put you out of harm's way at once. Come out on the balcony."

      Uncle Ted had a great coil of rope in his arms, and he stepped through the long French window onto the balcony, and Aunt Grace and Patty followed. There they discovered quite a party already assembled, and such costumes as they wore!

      Mrs. Carleton had on Turkish bedroom slippers, and she wore a black veil tied over her face for fear of smoke. She had wrapped herself in a large eider-down quilt and somebody had tied it round with a wide sash, so that she looked like a queer foreign personage of some sort.

      Nan, in her hurry, had fastened her wig on insecurely, and had since lost it. Her attire was an old ulster of Uncle Ted's, which she had found in the third story hall when she ran up to alarm the Carleton children and their nurse.

      The nurse in great fright had pulled down portières, and wrapped them round herself and the children, while old Hopalong had shuffled down from her room in a mackintosh and sun-bonnet.

      To this motley crowd came Aunt Grace in her handsome party gown, and Patty with her bag of treasures.

      "Hello, there," cried Uncle Ted, cheerily, "the danger is over, I think, but we have no stairs left to descend upon. The boys are bringing ladders, however, and I think, with care, we can all get down safely. But as my wife's sprained ankle is scarcely sound enough as yet to trust her on a ladder, I am going to try to swing her down in this hammock.

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