FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   69   70   71   72   73   74   75   76   77   78   79   >>  
s, and they waved out behind as he dashed forward. He could hear the voice of the Swede, screaming and blubbering. He pushed the wooden button, and, as the door flew open, the Swede, a maniac, stumbled inward, chattering, weeping, still screaming: "De barn fire! Fire! Fire! De barn fire! Fire! Fire! Fire!" There was a swift and indescribable change in the old man. His face ceased instantly to be a face; it became a mask, a gray thing, with horror written about the mouth and eyes. He hoarsely shouted at the foot of the little rickety stairs, and immediately, it seemed, there came down an avalanche of men. No one knew that during this time the old lady had been standing in her night clothes at the bedroom door, yelling: "What's th' matter? What's th' matter? What's th' matter?" When they dashed toward the barn it presented to their eyes its usual appearance, solemn, rather mystic in the black night. The Swede's lantern was overturned at a point some yards in front of the barn doors. It contained a wild little conflagration of its own, and even in their excitement some of those who ran felt a gentle secondary vibration of the thrifty part of their minds at sight of this overturned lantern. Under ordinary circumstances it would have been a calamity. But the cattle in the barn were trampling, trampling, trampling, and above this noise could be heard a humming like the song of innumerable bees. The old man hurled aside the great doors, and a yellow flame leaped out at one corner and sped and wavered frantically up the old gray wall. It was glad, terrible, this single flame, like the wild banner of deadly and triumphant foes. The motley crowd from the garret had come with all the pails of the farm. They flung themselves upon the well. It was a leisurely old machine, long dwelling in indolence. It was in the habit of giving out water with a sort of reluctance. The men stormed at it, cursed it; but it continued to allow the buckets to be filled only after the wheezy windlass had howled many protests at the mad-handed men. With his opened knife in his hand old Fleming himself had gone headlong into the barn, where the stifling smoke swirled with the air currents, and where could be heard in its fulness the terrible chorus of the flames, laden with tones of hate and death, a hymn of wonderful ferocity. He flung a blanket over an old mare's head, cut the halter close to the manger, led the mare to the door, and fairly
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   69   70   71   72   73   74   75   76   77   78   79   >>  



Top keywords:

matter

 

trampling

 

lantern

 
overturned
 

screaming

 

dashed

 

terrible

 

leisurely

 
machine
 

dwelling


indolence

 
wavered
 

frantically

 
corner
 

leaped

 

hurled

 

yellow

 
single
 

garret

 

deadly


banner

 
triumphant
 

giving

 

motley

 

windlass

 

flames

 
chorus
 

fulness

 
currents
 

stifling


swirled

 

halter

 

manger

 

fairly

 
wonderful
 
ferocity
 
blanket
 

headlong

 

buckets

 

filled


continued

 

reluctance

 
stormed
 

cursed

 

wheezy

 

innumerable

 
opened
 

Fleming

 

handed

 

howled