ones and I pushed and
Adeline pulled, and then we ran along close to the wall toward the
house. We certainly began to smell smoke, though we still could not
see any fire. The firemen were racing in and out of the house,
bringing out the furniture, as were some of the village boys, and the
engine was playing upon the south end, where the kitchen is.

Mrs. Peter Jones, who is very small and alert, said suddenly that
it looked to her as if the smoke were coming out of the kitchen
chimney, but Mrs. Ketchum said of course it was on fire inside in
the woodwork. "Oh, only to think of Mrs. Liscom's nice house being
all burned up, and what a dreadful reception for those boarders!"
she groaned out.

I never saw such a hubbub, and apparently over nothing at all, as
there was. There was a steady yell of fire from a crowd of boys who
seemed to enjoy it; the water was swishing, the firemen's arms were
pumping in unison, and everybody generally running in aimless circles
like a swarm of ants. Then we saw the boarders coming out. "Oh, the
house must be all in a light blaze inside!" groaned Mrs. Ketchum.

There were five of the boarders. The mother, a large, fair woman with
a long, massive face, her reddish hair crinkling and curling around
it in a sort of ivy-tendril fashion, came first. Her two daughters,
in blue gowns, with pretty, agitated faces, followed; then the young
son, fairly teetering with excitement; then the grandmother, a
little, tremulous old lady in an auburn wig.

The woman at the head carried a bucket, and what should she do but
form her family into a line toward the well at the north side of
the house where we were!

Of course, the family did not nearly reach to the well, and she
beckoned to us imperatively. "Come immediately!" said she; "if the
men of this village have no head in an emergency like this, let the
women arise! Come immediately."

So Mrs. Peter Jones, Mrs. Ketchum, Adeline, and I stepped into the
line, and the mother boarder filled the bucket at the well, and we
passed it back from hand to hand, and the boy at the end flung it
into Mrs. Liscom's front entry all over her nice carpet.

Then suddenly we saw Caroline Liscom appear. She snatched the bucket
out of the hands of the boy boarder and gave it a toss into the
lilac-bush beside the door; then she stood there, looking as I had
never seen her look before. Caroline Liscom has always had the
reputation of being a woman of a strong character; sh