, concluded that its source was directly below, and stopping at a pump
this side of her house, ran their hose down into the well. They were
working the brakes at a lively rate and preparing for a thorough
bombardment of the building, when fortunately she appeared, screaming,
"Fire is over there, beyond the woods!"

The smoke had now shifted its coarse, and rolling away from Miss
Persnips's, hung in a dark, sullen cloud above the forest but a little way
off.

Away went the engine and its allies, sweeping along men and boys, and also
every able-bodied member of the Up-the-Ladder Club whose legs could carry
him. Down past shops and houses and farms rushed the crowd, pulling along
several fat men who had grasped the rope. By and by they came to a farmer
in a red shirt who pointed his spectacles at them across the top-rail of
the fence at the right of the road.

"Where's the' fire, squire?" excitedly asked the foreman.

"Fire? I don't know of fire," replied the farmer, coolly, "at leastways,
any fire that is worth puttin' out. I have got a bonfire in back here, and
it was purty big, and its smoke you may have seen in the village. If you
want to stretch your muscle and soak your hose--and that is about all you
engine-people do--you may come and play on my bonfire."

"Come and play on _you_" shouted an angry voice.

"Put out _him_" screamed another.

"Play away, One," bawled a third, giving the number of the engine as known
at fires.

There was now a half-joking, half-angry comment on the "squire," and there
were enough there desirous of wetting down, not his bonfire, but its
builder. The foreman quieted the strife and the "Cataract" started for
home. A willingness was expressed to moisten "Miss Persnips's place"
because she had misled them, though it was unintentional on her part.

Some one sang out, "She can't tell about smoke. She has only one good eye,
and t'other one is a glass eye."

This put them all in a good-natured mood, and the "Cataract" went home.

Soon there was a fire serious enough to satisfy the most ardent of the
company. A milder style of weather had been prevailing after the late
snow-storm. The sun had put extra coal on its fires and melted all the
snow. Then came a wind that blew continuously two days, drying the grounds
and the buildings.

"I notice, Somers," said Dr. Tilton, "that you did not have good luck in
finding a fire that last alarm, but if one is sounded now, I guess it will
amoun