d and faithful servant, forasmuch as you have done good
unto one of the least of these my brethren, you have done it unto me."

CHAPTER XV.

Captain Nicholas McDuffy.

Before the introduction of the improved method of fire fighting in
Southern cities--before the steam engine, the hook and ladder and water
tower companies supplanted the old hand pump and bucket companies, the
Negro was the chief fire fighter, and there was nothing that tended more
to make fire fighting a pleasant pastime than those old volunteer
organizations. For many years after the war Wilmington was supplied with
water for the putting out of fires by means of cisterns which were built
in the centre of streets. When the old bell in the market house tower
sounded the alarm of fire, the volunteers left their work and hastened
to headquarters to drag forth the old hand pump and make for the cistern
nearest the scene of the fire, where, keeping time to the tune of some
lively song, they pumped the fire out. There was peculiar sweetness in
those old songs which made fire fighting a fascinating pastime in those
old days. While a few men spannered the hose, directed the stream and
did the work of rescuing and saving furniture, etc., the majority were
required to man the pumps. Thirty or forty men in brilliant uniform
lined up on either side of the huge engine, tugging away at the great
horizontal handles, presented a spectacle which no one even in these
days of advancement would despise. And the singing!

"O Lindy, Lindy my dear honey,
Lindy, gal, I'm boun' to go;
O Lindy, Lindy my dear honey,
O Lindy, gal, I'm boun' to go," etc.

A few lines of another:

"The cows in de ole field, don't yo' hear de bell?
Let her go, let her go.
The cows in de ole field, don't yo' hear de bell?
Let her go, let her go," etc.

But the things that will make those old organizations live longest in
the memory are their frolics, excursions and picnics, full of all that
appealed to the appetite for pleasure and excitement. There the dancer,
the fighter, the runner, the wrestler, could indulge freely in his
favorite pastime; there old scores could be settled and new ones made.
The most noteworthy and serviceable of those old volunteer organizations
was the old "Brooklyn No. 4," which guarded that portion of the city
known by that name. No. 2, in the middle section, and the "Old No. 3
Double Deck," in the southern part of the city