n shut,
and the harness Jim threw out was snowed under. No one dreamed that
the mare was not there. The flames burst through the wreck and lit up
the cottage and swaying chestnuts. Joe and his family stood in the
shelter of it, looking sadly on. For the second time that Christmas
night tears came into the honest truckman's eyes. He wiped them away
with his cap.

"Poor 'Liza!" he said.

A hand was laid with gentle touch upon his arm. He looked up. It was
his wife. Her face beamed with a great happiness.

"Joe," she said, "you remember what you read: 'tidings of great joy.'
Oh, Joe, Jim has come home!"

She stepped aside, and there was Jim, sister Jennie hanging on his
neck, and 'Liza alive and neighing her pleasure. The lad looked at his
father and hung his head.

"Jim saved her, father," said Jennie, patting the gray mare; "it was
him fetched the engines."

Joe took a step toward his son and held out his hand to him.

"Jim," he said, "you're a better man nor yer father. From now on, you
'n' I run the truck on shares. But mind this, Jim: never leave mother
no more."

And in the clasp of the two hands all the past was forgotten and
forgiven. Father and son had found each other again.

"'Liza," said the truckman, with sudden vehemence, turning to the old
mare and putting his arm around her neck, "'Liza! It was your doin's.
I knew it was luck when I found them things. Merry Christmas!" And he
kissed her smack on her hairy mouth, one, two, three times.

HEROES WHO FIGHT FIRE

Thirteen years have passed since,[2] but it is all to me as if it had
happened yesterday--the clanging of the fire-bells, the hoarse shouts
of the firemen, the wild rush and terror of the streets; then the
great hush that fell upon the crowd; the sea of upturned faces, with
the fire-glow upon it; and up there, against the background of black
smoke that poured from roof and attic, the boy clinging to the narrow
ledge, so far up that it seemed humanly impossible that help could
ever come.

[Footnote 2: Written in 1898.]

But even then it was coming. Up from the street, while the crew of the
truck company were laboring with the heavy extension-ladder that at
its longest stretch was many feet too short, crept four men upon long,
slender poles with cross-bars, iron-hooked at the end. Standing in one
window, they reached up and thrust the hook through the next one
above, then mounted a story higher. Again the crash