tion of
seeing his house wrapped in flames, discovered that the smoke proceeded
from a brush-heap which his neighbor Atkins was burning in a field near
by.

The revulsion of feeling that ensued was almost too much for the
excitable Ducklow. His strength went out of him. For a little while
there seemed to be nothing left of him but tremor and cold sweat.
Difficult as it had been to get the old mare in motion, it was now even
more difficult to stop her.

"Why! what has got into Ducklow's old mare? She's running away with him!
Who ever heard of such a thing!" And Atkins, watching the ludicrous
spectacle from his field, became almost as weak from laughter as Ducklow
was from the effects of fear.

At length Ducklow succeeded in checking the old mare's speed, and in
turning her about. It was necessary to drive back for his hat. By this
time he could hear a chorus of shouts, "Fire! fire! fire!" over the
hill. He had aroused the neighbors as he passed, and now they were
flocking to extinguish the flames.

"A false alarm! a false alarm!" said Ducklow, looking marvellously
sheepish, as he met them. "Nothing but Atkins's brush-heap!"

"Seems to me you ought to have found that out 'fore you raised all
creation with your yells!" said one hyperbolical fellow. "You looked
like the Flying Dutchman! This your hat? I thought 'twas a dead cat in
the road. No fire, no fire!"--turning back to his comrades,--"only one
of Ducklow's jokes."

Nevertheless, two or three boys there were who would not be convinced,
but continued to leap up, swing their caps, and scream "Fire!" against
all remonstrance. Ducklow did not wait to enter into explanations, but,
turning the old mare about again, drove home amid the laughter of the
bystanders and the screams of the misguided youngsters. As he approached
the house, he met Taddy rushing wildly up the street.

"Thaddeus! Thaddeus! where ye goin', Thaddeus?"

"Goin' to the fire!" cried Taddy.

"There isn't any fire, boy!"

"Yes, there is! Didn't ye hear 'em? They've been yellin' like fury."

"It's nothin' but Atkins's brush."

"That all?" And Taddy appeared very much disappointed. "I thought there
was goin' to be some fun. I wonder who was such a fool as to yell fire
jest for a darned old brush-heap!"

Ducklow did not inform him.

"I've got to drive over to town and git Reuben's trunk. You stand by the
mare while I step in and brush my hat."

Instead of applying himself at once to the rest