A borrowed sister

Lois’s grandmother had never enjoyed a visit at her daughter-in-law’s so much as this one. To begin with, the witch kitten helped to cement the bond between herself and Lois; and then in the second place, there was Jessie, who stood as an interpreter, and was always ready to draw Lois out, and Lois talking was quite a different child from Lois silent, as her grandmother found. Then, too, the craze for Bridge had reached the town, and Mrs. Luther Page was never happier than when playing this game. Several Bridge parties were given in her honor, and she was asked to dinner at the Drapers’, and to supper at various houses, including Sophie Brown’s, where she had the pleasure of seeing Captain Taft, who had exchanged his arctics for some slippers, embroidered in dull yellow on a green background, by a niece in Dakota. Best of all, however, were the long drives that the Brierfield horses made possible, when Mrs. Page and her daughter-in-law and the children explored the neighboring country, driving through the woods, or to the summits of distant hills.

The bright autumn coloring had gone, and the dull shades of early November had taken its place, but there was a peculiar charm in the soft haze of these Indian summer afternoons. So the time sped by, and Grandmother Lois, who had come for one week, decided to stay until the middle of November.

There were only three days of her visit left, when she was sitting one evening in the parlor, with her daughter-in-law and the children.

“This is my last quiet evening in the dear house where nothing happens,” she said, as she took out her embroidery. “I wish I hadn’t promised to play Bridge at the Smiths’ to-morrow. I dislike Mrs. Smith; she is a pert little upstart. But what could I do? The Bridge birds of a feather who flock together are sometimes a very queerly assorted set. Dear me! I have lost my needle! How tiresome!”

“I have some,” said Jessie, and she took out a needle-book tied with pink ribbon.

“Mrs. Draper gave her that. It was the second prize in the darning-class,” Lois explained. “Anne Morgan got the first, and I got the third because I improved so much. It is a pincushion that looks just like an apple. Wouldn’t you like to see it, grandmother?”

“Of course I should.”

Lois brought out her pincushion and showed it with pride.

“Ellen had the fourth prize,” she continued. “It was a red crocheted pincushion made to look like a tomato. Mrs. Draper gave it to her because Ellen is so fond of vegetables. We didn’t know there were to be more than two prizes, and it was such a lovely surprise!”

Every one went to sleep as peacefully as usual that night, and it was a little past one o’clock before the disturbance began. They were all good sleepers, and the bell of the town hall rang noisily for some time, and yet none of them waked. Then it stopped for a while and rang again, and it was followed by the louder peal of the bell on the Methodist Church, which was very near. Grandmother Lois was the first to wake. She had a confused impression that it was the Fourth of July, then she remembered the season of the year, and listened with growing apprehension. On the sidewalk below her windows, there was the hurried tramp of many feet all going in the same direction, and the sound of voices. She could see no signs of a fire on her side of the house, so she hastily put on her wrapper, and went into her daughter-in-law’s room.

“Wake up, Elizabeth, there is a fire!” she cried.

The younger Mrs. Page roused herself slowly, and then went to the window and pushed up the curtain, and she and her mother-in-law peered out into the night. There was a dull red glow all over the southern side of the sky, and below it a building was burning and the flames were leaping up in fantastic shapes.

“It’s Chauncey’s, I am sure,” said Mrs. Page, “and the wind is bringing the sparks over in our direction. I am sorry to frighten you, mother, but I think it would be wise for you to pack your trunk. I must call Maggie. I hope the children won’t wake.”

At this moment, however, Jessie was roused by voices directly under her window, and she was pushing up the curtain. “Lois, Lois!” she called. “Do wake up and come and look at this beautiful fire. It is the most glorious thing I ever saw. Just see how the sparks fly!”

Lois joined her, and the two children stood spellbound at the window. They watched the flames leap up as if they were live things, and cover the whole building, and they could hear the shouts of the crowd. Finally one side of the store fell in, and then there was a magnificent display of fireworks, with the accompaniment of flying sparks and hoarse cries from the crowd.

“Isn’t that wonderful?” said Jessie.

“Yes, but did you see that? Our fence has caught.”

They had felt no sense of personal danger before, but had watched the spectacle as if it were a superior kind of fireworks arranged for their especial benefit. “Mother, mother!” Lois called, “our fence is on fire!”

Jessie, meanwhile, was dressing quickly. “Somebody ought to go down there with buckets of water to put the fire out as soon as it catches,” she said.

Lois began to dress too, and Mrs. Page came to their door. “I am sorry you waked, children. You had better go to bed again; there isn’t anything you can do. I will wake you if there is any real danger.”

“But the fence is on fire,” said Lois.

Just then there was a loud ringing at the door, and Mrs. Page hurried down.

“Your fence is on fire,” said Amyas Morgan, “and Reuben and I want some buckets of water, so we can keep guard and put it out. The whole fire department is busy down at the square.”

“Is it Chauncey’s that is burning?” Mrs. Page asked.

“Yes.”

“I thought Joe Mills would be sure to come to protect us.”

“I guess he’s busy saving the kids at his house. The block next Chauncey’s caught first, and the Donnellys have a tenement there. Joe discovered the fire, but it was well under way before he could give the alarm.”

Mrs. Page and Maggie went to get some old fire buckets, and the boys departed, full of importance in being so useful.

Meanwhile Mrs. Luther Page was putting the clothes into her trunk with nervous haste.

The wind was blowing strongly from the south, and Elizabeth Page, who never lost her head, went about the house as calmly as if she had been accustomed to fires from her childhood, quietly collecting her valuables and packing them in the trunks that she and Maggie brought in from the store-room. Seeing her mother so occupied, Lois went into the play-room to gather up some of her treasures. She had so many that it was hard to choose, but chief of all were her doll Betty and her little mahogany bureau and bedstead, a candlestick in the form of a griffin, the doll’s hat Amyas had given her, and the beautiful millinery outfit that her grandmother had brought her. Some of these things were a little hard to carry, but Lois managed to transport them all to her mother’s room, where she deposited them in a heap on the floor.

“For heaven’s sake, Lois Page, what are you doing?” asked her mother, turning around as the last load was brought in.

“It is just a few of the things I care most about,” said Lois. “I thought I would bring them in here to save you trouble.”

Mrs. Page looked at Betty, the doll, sitting among the ruins of her home, and she could not help laughing, for Betty, even in this hour of affliction, had the same cheerful, self-satisfied expression that she always wore. She was leaning back against the bureau, with the hat Amyas had given her put on awry, and she seemed to say, “Look at me. See how well I can bear adversity!”

Jessie, meanwhile, had quietly packed her trunk, and then came in to see if she could help her Aunt Elizabeth.

“I am sure there is no real danger,” said Lois’s mother, “but it is well to be prepared for everything.”

“Elizabeth,” called the elder Mrs. Page, “you must come and help me. I am so nervous. There are two dresses I can’t get into my trunk. Nora packed for me when I came. I don’t see how she managed so cleverly. The dresses are my black satin and my crêpe de chine. I got everything in, as I thought, and I had the trunk locked, and then I remembered them; they were in the back of the closet.”

Meanwhile Jessie and Lois slipped out to the cat-house to see how Minnie and Mittens were bearing the excitement. They found them walking back and forth on the window-sill. Finding that there was nothing to do for their favorites, it was not in human nature for the children to go back to the house without first joining the group at the fence.

Amyas and Reuben were keeping guard manfully; the wind was already going down, and the sparks that came over were fewer.

“Hullo, Lois,” said Amyas, “I am afraid the fire is going to fizzle out.”

“What a pity!” said Lois.

“Would you like it better if your house were to get on fire?” Reuben asked.

“No. But it is such a beautiful thing to look at, that, as long as Chauncey’s had to burn, I’d like it to keep on a little longer. There wasn’t anybody hurt, was there?”

“A fireman fell and broke his leg. It was very exciting. We wanted to stay, but we noticed that your fence was on fire, so we came over,” said Amyas, who always liked the credit for his kind deeds.

“That was very good of you,” said Lois. She was so taken out of herself by the fire, that she forgot to be afraid of Amyas and his brother.

“I wonder if there isn’t anything we can do?” said Jessie. “Do you suppose the firemen would like some hot coffee?”

“You bet!” said Amyas. “Here is one of them who would.”

Jessie went back to the house to tell Mrs. Page that the wind was going down, and to ask if Maggie might not make some coffee. Lois meant to follow her, but she stood rooted to the spot, being fascinated by the spectacle of the fire.

“Mother didn’t want us to wake up,” she said, “but I wouldn’t have missed this beautiful sight for anything in the world. It is my first real fire. When the steam-mill burned, it just happened we were away on a picnic. I always have the worst luck. Where’s Ellen?”

“She and Anne never waked up, and mother wouldn’t let me wake them. She said Ellen would insist on going to the fire, and she didn’t want her to.”

“Poor Ellen!” said Lois. It was hard to understand the grown-up point of view concerning fires. “I should think your mother would have wanted her to come. It is something she would remember to her dying day.”

“They’ve got the fire under control now,” said Amyas regretfully.

Lois had a distinct sense of disappointment.

A little later hot coffee was served in the Pages’ kitchen, and groups of firemen came to the door to get it, while Grandmother Lois and Mrs. Page, Jessie, Lois, Amyas, and Reuben had a picnic lunch in the dining-room.

“I did say that I thought Chauncey’s was a disgrace to the village and that it ought to burn down,” said Lois’s grandmother, “and I did say that nothing ever happened in your house, and that I should like to see everything you possessed in wild chaos, but, my dear Elizabeth, I never expected Fate to take me so seriously.”