xcited voice!

"We're on fire!" I cried. "Come quick, and bring all the men you can!"

"I'll be there in fifteen minutes. Fill the bathtubs with water and put
in blankets." And he hung up.

I dashed back to the hall. Betsy was ringing our fire bell, and Percy
had already routed out his Indian tribes in dormitories B and C.

Our first thought was not to stop the fire, but to get the children to a
place of safety. We began in G, and went from crib to crib, snatching a
baby and a blanket, and rushing them to the door, and handing them out
to the Indians, who lugged them downstairs. Both G and F were full of
smoke, and the children so dead asleep that we couldn't rouse them to a
walking state.

Many times during the next hour did I thank Providence--and Percy
Witherspoon--for those vociferous fire drills we have suffered weekly.
The twenty-four oldest boys, under his direction, never lost their heads
for a second. They divided into four tribes, and sprang to their posts
like little soldiers.

Two tribes helped in the work of clearing the dormitories and keeping
the terrified children in order. One tribe worked the hose from the
cupola tank until the firemen came, and the rest devoted themselves to
salvage. They spread sheets on the floor, dumped the contents of lockers
and bureau drawers into them, and bundled them down the stairs. All of
the extra clothes were saved except those the children had actually been
wearing the day before, and most of the staff's things. But clothes,
bedding--everything belonging to G and F went. The rooms were too full
of smoke to make it safe to enter after we had got out the last child.

By the time the doctor arrived with Luellen and two neighbors he had
picked up, we were marching the last dormitory down to the kitchen, the
most remote corner from the fire. The poor chicks were mainly barefooted
and wrapped in blankets. We told them to bring their clothes when we
wakened them, but in their fright they thought only of getting out.

By this time the halls were so full of smoke we could scarcely breathe.
It looked as though the whole building would go, though the wind was
blowing away from my west wing.

Another automobile full of retainers from Knowltop came up almost
immediately, and they all fell to fighting the fire. The regular fire
department didn't come for ten minutes after that. You see, they have
only horses, and we are three miles out, and the roads pretty bad. It
was a dre