Butler Ellis Parker - Swatty: A Story of Real Boys стр 8.

Me and Swatty and Bony kept backing away as the fire came toward us. Sometimes we would turn, and run. We backed away as far as ten city blocks would be, I guess, before we were where we did not have to back away any more. We forgot all about school, and about fishing, and about everything. It was the kind of fire where nobody thinks of going home until it is all over.

It was about two oclock when the people in front and the firemen in front of them gave a sort of roar, as if they were a lot of animals, and everybody crowded back. The firemen on top of the sash and door factory ran from one edge of the roof to the other, looking down. Two of them jumped off. They were killed, but the others got down the ladders, and the next minute the factory and its oil house were all afire at once just sort of spouted fire from all the windows as if the fire had been all fixed to break out that way.

Before you could turn around and then look back, the sash and door factory was one big, hot flame, and then the houses began to go. First one and then another caught fire.

We got crowded back until we were in the street right opposite to Swattys fathers tailor shop, and Swattys father was on the front step of it shaking his hands in the air and shouting like a crazy man, but nobody paid any attention to him. He was a little man and he had gray hair, but he was mostly bald. He didnt have a hat on and he looked pretty crazy standing there and shouting.

Well, we didnt know until afterward what he was shouting about, but I know now, so I might as well tell it. There was a cellar under his shop and it was full of barrels of whiskey. When prohibition was elected the saloons thought they would have to stop for a while and that then they could go ahead again, so they hunted for some place to hide the whiskey they owned, where it would be safe for a while, and Mr. Schwartzs cellar was one of the places they hid it in. What Swattys father was trying to shout was that if his shop caught fire all the whiskey in the cellar might explode and the people standing around might be killed and the whole town burn up. I dont wonder he was sort of crazy about it. I guess Swatty felt sort of ashamed that his father was acting so crazy.

So then the house next to Swattys fathers shop caught fire, and the next minute the side of Swattys fathers shop began to smoke.

The policemen were sort of crowding us back all the time, but we would nt go back much, and all at once Mamie Little started out of the crowd and began to run toward Swattys fathers shop. But when she was halfway there the fire marshal just caught her by the arm and gave her a sort of twist and slung her back, and then the policeman nearest us caught her and jammed her back against me and Swatty. She was crying all the time; she kept moaning, My father! My father!

So just then Swattys father ran out and grabbed the fire marshal by the arm and talked to him in German, because they were both German, and the fire marshal ran toward his firemen and shouted through his trumpet, and all the firemen up the street came running back, dragging all their hose and all shouting.

It was all wild and sort of crazy, and suddenly the fire marshal ran back to where the firemen were tugging at the heavy hose and shouting, and four firemen who were holding on to a nozzle pointed the stream into the air. It was worse than any rain you ever saw. It was just whoosh! and we were all soaked. So all the crowd hollered and screamed, and we all turned and ran, and all I knew was that I had hold of Mamie Littles hand and was helping her run. I was awful sorry for her because she was crying and her father was going to burn.

So Swatty said: Whats she crying for? Why dont she shut up?

He meant Mamie Little. So I said:

She can cry if she wants to! Id like to see you try to stop her! Shes crying because your father gave her his fashion plate and its going to be burned up, and if you say much Ill lick you!

So Swatty said: If thats all shes crying for, come on. Well get her old fashion plate for her. So I said to Mamie Little: Stop being a baby and shut up, and well get your old fashion plate for you.

Swatty just cut in through the crowd, and me and Bony followed after him. He went up the side street, and we climbed over the fence into the yard of the corner house and cut across that yard and over another fence. That way we got to the back of Swattys fathers shop without any one stopping us. Bony kind of kept behind us.

It was mighty hot, because the house next door was all afire, but the firemen were keeping all their hose on the side of Swattys fathers shop, trying to keep it from burning. We crouched down and kept our backs to the fire so the heat wouldnt shrivel us, and we got to the back door and it wasnt locked. We went in. It was hot like an oven inside, and the noise of all the water on the side of the house was like thunder, only louder. The inside of the shop was like under a waterfall. You wouldnt think anything so wet could burn, but it did. Before we were halfway to the front window the fire began to eat into the shop along the floor. The water on that side just turned to steam and dried as fast as it ran down.

Bony began to cry, but we hadnt any time to stop. Swatty took him by the hand and jerked him along, and we got to the window and I grabbed the fashion plate. Then we couldnt go back because the shop was mostly afire and we would have been burned up. So then Bony got real scared and ran to the front door and threw it open, and a stream from a hose caught him and sent him head over heels back into the shop where it was burning; he was knocked unconscious because his head hit a table leg.

So I didnt know what to do. I guess I began to cry. I crouched down in the window because I couldnt get out at the door on account of the stream of water that was coming in there a hundred miles a minute, and I couldnt go back because the back of the shop was all afire now. But Swatty crawled on his hands and knees under the table where Bony was, where the fire was beginning to burn harder, and he grabbed Bony and yanked him along the floor back to the window. I guess I helped him jerk Bony onto the window shelf, but just then another stream of water busted the window in. The glass fell all around us and one piece cut Swatty on the hand, but he only said, Jump! Jump!

Maybe we would have jumped, but we didnt. The firemen had got to the back of the building and had turned the hose in at the back window, and just when Swatty said, Jump! the stream of water hit us like a board. It took us as if we were pieces of paper and slammed us out of the broken window and halfway across the street, and threw us head over heels in the mud, and the fashion plate, with Mamie Littles father, came flying with us.

So I crawled over to where the fashion plate was and took hold of it and began to drag it to where Mamie Little was. A policeman came and took me by the shoulder and lifted me up, but I couldnt stand, and that was the first I knew my ankle was sprained. But Swatty got up himself and sassed the policeman that came to get him. He told him he had a right to go into his fathers own shop if he wanted to, and that if the policeman said much more he would go back again.

I guess the whiskey exploded all right. Three more houses burned before they stopped the fire, but we didnt see that because Bony ran all the way home, and somebody carried me to a wagon, and drove home with me, and Swattys father got him and took him up the main street and waled him on the hotel corner with a half-burned shingle that had blown from the lumber fire.

The next day my ankle hurt pretty bad and I stayed in bed with linament on it and after school Lucy came up to see me. Come on up in my room and play, I told her.