toddling along barefooted in his nightie, the tears rolling
down his fat cheeks. "Mama!" he sobbed. "I want my Mama!"

"Oh, poor little thing!" cried Betty. "He's lost!" She caught the scared
little fellow up in her arms and wrapped him snugly in the folds of her
loose cloak. "Don't cry, honey. Betty'll find Mama for you!" And she
cuddled and petted him till he stopped crying and lay still in her arms,
peering out at the spreading flames with wondering eyes.

"I'm going to find his mother for him," said Betty. "He's scared half to
death!"

But Sure Pop caught her arm as she started away. "Wait, she'll find
him."

Sure enough, before long a young woman came running wildly from house to
house calling out, "Karlchen! My little Karlchen! Where are you?"

The little fellow popped his head out from under Betty's cloak with a
squeal of delight. "Mama!" he cried in his soft baby voice.
"Mama!"--just that one happy word, over and over, as his mother pressed
him to her breast.

The look on her face was thanks enough for Betty. Somehow the fire did
not seem so dreadful to her after that.

"How'd it start?" Bob asked a fireman who was binding up a split in the
bulging canvas hose.

"Fellow dropped a lighted match in a coat closet--house next to the
church," puffed the fireman, who was breathing as if he had run a mile.
He gave the hose a parting kick and hurried to join his comrades down
the street, where the flames were fiercest.

"The same old story," said Sure Pop, soberly. "Hold on! What's that?"

Bob and Betty looked up at the little old-fashioned window in the
cottage across the street. A small black-and-tan dog was standing on his
hind legs inside the room, pawing and scratching at the window pane.

Sure Pop put two fingers to his lips and gave a piercing whistle. The
dog answered him, barking wildly and running back into the smoke-filled
room, then to the window again, as if trying to call their attention to
something or somebody in the room with him.

"There's somebody in there!" cried Bob. "Come on, Sure Pop--wait here
for us, Betty!"

As they ran, the two splashed into a pool of water in a hollow of the
sidewalk. Sure Pop dipped his handkerchief in this and tied it over his
nose and mouth. Bob did the same. Then the smoke of the burning cottage
swallowed them up.

Remembering the dangers of a draft, Sure Pop carefully closed the door
after them, and stopped Bob from kicking a hole in the window at the
h