The Camp Fire Girls in After Years

by Margaret Vandercook

  CHAPTER XIX

  A CRY IN THE NIGHT

  BECAUSE she was tired from her long walk and her conversation and fromother reasons Polly went up-stairs to bed sooner than her sister andbrother-in-law.

  As a special privilege the children had begged that Bobbin should beallowed to sleep in the nursery with them, and rather against her willPolly had consented. The little girl had previously occupied a smallroom connected with her own.

  However, she was too weary for argument, and besides Mollie's babieswere cross and unreasonable. They had been playing all afternoon withthe Christmas tree which stood in the big back parlor just under Polly'sroom. Anything to get them safely stowed in bed and the house quiet!

  For Polly had expected to lie awake for a number of hours, reflecting onmany things, when in point of fact immediately after retiring she sankinto a deep and dreamless sleep.

  Moreover, about ten o'clock Mollie and Billy also decided to followtheir sister's example. And it was Billy himself who closed up thewindows and made the house ready for the night. Only he failed to gointo the back parlor where the Christmas tree stood and where the floorwas now littered with discarded toys and games and the walls hung withdried-out evergreens.

  He was under the impression that the windows in this room had beenclosed and locked when the children departed to bed. Moreover, lockingup at the farm-house was more of a custom than a necessity. No one hadany real fear of burglars or tramps. Besides, the windows in the backparlor were locked and no danger was to come from the outside.

  But it must have been only about three hours later when Mollie suddenlyawoke with a scream and start. A hand had passed lightly over her face.

  The next instant and Billy jumped up and seized hold of the intruder.

  Yet his hands clasped only a slight, childish form in a white gown. Itwas too dark in the room to see who it could be until Mollie lit thecandle which stood always by their bedside.

  Then they both discovered Bobbin, not walking in her sleep as theysupposed, but with her face very white and making queer little movementswith her hands and lips.

  "The child is frightened; something must have to disturbed her," Billysuggested, still only half awake himself.

  But Mollie had jumped out of bed and was already on her way to thenursery. Naturally she presumed that something had happened to one ofthe children and that Bobbin had come to call her. Poor little girl, shehad no other way of calling than to touch with her hands!

  However, half way down the hall Mollie turned and ran back into her ownbedroom.

  "Get up please, Billy, in a hurry, won't you? I do believe I smell smokesomewhere in the house. Something must be on fire. Of course Bobbincould detect it before the rest of us; she is sure to have a keenersense of smell."

  A moment later and Billy had jumped almost all the way down the longflight of old-fashioned country stairs.

  "Don't be frightened, dear, but get the children up and put clothes onthem," he shouted back. "It is too cold for you to go out in the snowundressed and we are miles from a neighbor. I will call the men and wewill fight the fire. Don't forget to waken Polly!"

  With this last injunction in her mind Mollie stopped to hammer on hersister's door before she ran on to the nursery.

  She was certain that she heard Polly answer her. Besides, by this timethe house was filled with an excited tumult, Mollie's little boys weredancing about in the hall, half pleased and half frightened with theexcitement, their nurse was scolding and crying and vainly endeavoringto dress the small Polly.

  So it was plain enough that for the next few minutes Mollie haddifficulty enough in keeping her wits about her and in quieting herfamily, especially as every now and then she could hear her husband'svoice from below calling on her to hurry as quickly as possible.

  Only Bobbin at once slipped into a heavy, long coat and shoes and rushedback to Polly's room. The door was locked, but she pounded patiently andautomatically on the outside, unable, of course, to hear the answeringvoice from within.

  Then there came a sudden hoarse shout from below stairs and in thatinstant Mr. Webster, dashing up a flight of steps almost at one bound,returned with the baby in his arms, while Mollie led one of the smallboys and the nurse the other.

  "Come on, you and Polly, at once!" Mollie cried, waving her hands andpointing toward the great hall to show that there was no time forfurther delay.

  But this was evident enough to Bobbin without being told, for the smokewas pouring out of the parlor into the hall and coming up the stairslike a great advancing army.

  However, Bobbin would not leave her post. There was not the faintestthought in her brain of ever stirring from without that locked dooruntil the one person whom she loved in the world should come forth fromit. And she was not conscious of feeling particularly afraid, only shecould not understand why Miss O'Neill would not hurry.

  A moment later, however, and Bobbin found herself outside standing alonein the snow.

  There had been no possible outcry on her part, no explanation and noargument, of course. Only when one of the farm laborers rushingup-stairs had seen the little girl loitering in the hall, without sayingby your leave, he had seized her in his arms and borne her strugglingthrough the now stifling smoke.

  Outside in the yard Bobbin for a moment felt weak and confused. For allat once the place seemed to be swarming with excited people.

  There were a dozen men and their families living on the big farm withhouses of their own. And now the ringing of a great bell had broughtthem all out with their wives and children as well.

  The women were swarming about Mollie with their children, crying,gesticulating, talking. It was a clear, white night and Bobbin couldsee them easily. The men were engaged in rushing back and forth withpails of water, fearing that the water might freeze on the way.

  But there was nowhere any sign of Polly!

  Bobbin did not try to attract attention. In the instant it did not evenoccur to her that she might not have been able to make any oneunderstand. Simply and without being seen she slipped into one of thebig front windows, opened by the men as a passage-way, and startedfighting her way again up the black, smoke-laden steps.

  There seemed to be no more air, it was all a thick, foggy substance thatgot into your throat and made you unable to breathe and into your eyesso that you could not see. But Bobbin went resolutely on.

  She clung to the banisters and dragged herself upward, either too stupidor too intent on her errand to suffer fear. Nevertheless, through thesmoke she could see that long tongues of flame were bursting out of thedoors of the back parlor into the hall beneath her.

  Only, once more at Polly's bedroom door Bobbin lost heart and the onlyreal terror she ever remembered enduring seized hold on her. For Polly'sdoor was still locked and she had no means of making her hear.

  All that she could accomplish by hammering and kicking she had donebefore. Of course, she tried this again, yet the door did not open andso far as Bobbin could know there was no movement from the inside.

  Yet next Miss O'Neill's room there was her own room and the door of thiswas unfastened. With a kind of half-blind impulse Bobbin staggered intoit. She had no clear or definite idea of what she intended doing, yetfortunately this room was only partially filled with smoke so that shecould in a measure see her way about.

  There in the corner stood an old-fashioned, heavy wooden chair. Almostinstinctively Bobbin seized hold on it. She was curiously strong, doublyso to any other girl of her age, since she had lived outdoors alwayslike a little barbarian. Besides, there was nothing else that could bedone. She must break down Miss O'Neill's door.

  With all her force the girl hurled the heavy chair against the oak door.There were a few marks on its surface, yet the door remained absolutelyfirm, for the Webster house had been built in the days when wood hadbeen plentiful in the New Hampshire hills and homes had been expected toendure.

  Nevertheless Bobbin pounded again and again, almost automatically herthin arms seemed
to work, and yet all her effort was without avail.

  During these moments no one can guess exactly what emotions tore at thegirl's heart. If only she could have cried out her alarm and her desire,surely she would have been answered!

  Bobbin's face worked strangely, there was a kind of throbbing in herears and her lips moved. "Polly!" she called in a hoarse little whisper,and this was the first word she had ever spoken in her life.

  Inside in her smoke-filled room Polly O'Neill could not possibly haveheard her. For the past fifteen minutes, during all the excitement dueto the fire, she had been lying upon her bed in a stifled condition. Forno one had realized that as Polly's room was immediately above the backparlor, where the fire had been smouldering ever since the children hadgone up-stairs to bed, her room had been first to be filled with smoke.Yet the smoke had come so slowly, so gradually as she lay in a kind ofexhausted sleep, that she had been stupefied rather than awakened by it.

  Now was it the miracle rather than the sound of Bobbin's speaking hername that penetrated slowly to Polly's consciousness, or was it thenoise of the repeated pounding of the heavy chair against her door?Whatever the cause, she came back to the world, choking, blinded,fighting with her hands to keep off the black substance that wascrowding into her lungs.

  Then somehow she managed to crawl across her room, remembering that thesmoke would be denser higher up in the atmosphere. Unlocking the door,she turned the handle and Bobbin caught her as she half fell into thehall.

  With a quick movement the girl put her arm about the older woman's waistand started for the stairway, for the hall was dense with smoke and nowand then a tongue of flame leaped up from below and seemed to dance fora moment in the air about them.

  It was overpowering, unendurable. Polly was already dazed and exhaustedand her lungs were always delicate. At the top of the stairs she becamea dead weight on her companion's arms. Besides, by this time Bobbin toowas very weary.