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How We Fought The Fire.
by William McKendree CarletonI.
'Twas a drowsy night on Tompkins Hill:
The very leaves of the trees lay still;
The world was slumbering, ocean deep;
And even the stars seemed half asleep,
And winked and blinked at the roofs below,
As yearning for morn, that they might go.
The streets as stolid and still did lie
As they would have done if streets could die;
The sidewalks stretched as quietly prone
As if a foot they had never known;
And not a cottage within the town,
But looked as if it would fain lie down.
Away in the west a stacken-cloud,
With white arms drooping and bare head bowed,
Was leaning against - with drowsy eye -
The dark blue velveting of the sky.
And that was the plight
Things were in that night,
Before we were roused the foe to fight -
The foe so greedy and grand and bright -
That plagued old Deacon Tompkins.
II.
The Deacon lay on his first wife's bed,
His second wife's pillow beneath his head,
His third wife's coverlet o'er him wide,
His fourth wife slumbering by his side.
The parson visioned his Sunday's text,
And what he should hurl at Satan next;
The doctor a drowsy half-vigil kept,
Still studying, as he partly slept,
How men might glutton, and tope, and fly
In the face of Death, and still not die;
The lawyer dreamed that his clients meant
To club together, and then present,
As proof that their faith had not grown dim,
A small bright silver hatchet to him;
The laborer such sound slumber knew,
He hadn't a dream the whole night through;
The ladies dreamed - but I can't say well
What 'tis they dream, for they never tell!
In short, such a general drowsy time
Had ne'er been known in that sleepy clime,
As on the night
Of clamor and fright,
We were roused the treacherous foe to fight -
The foe so greedy and grand and bright,
And carrying such an appetite -
That plagued old Deacon Tompkins.
III.
When all at once the old court-house bell
(Which had a voice like a maniac's yell)
Cried out, as if in its dim old sight
The judgment-day had come in the night.
"Bang whang whang bang clang dang bang whang,"
The poor old parcel of metal sang;
Whereat, from mansion, cottage, and shed,
Rose men and women as from the dead,
In different stages of attire,
And shouted, "The town is all afire!"
(Which came as near to being true
As some more leisurely stories do.)
They saw on the Deacon's house a glare,
And everybody hurried there;
And such a lot of visitors he
Had never before the luck to see.
The Deacon received these guests of night
In a costume very simple and white;
And after a drowsy, scared "Ahem!"
He asked them what he could do for them.
"Fire! fire!" they shouted; "your house's afire!"
And then, with energy sudden and dire,
They rushed through the mansion's solitudes,
And helped the Deacon to move his goods.
And that was the sight
We had that night,
When roused by the people who saw the light
Atop of the cottage, cozy and white,
Where lived old Deacon Tompkins.
IV.
Ah me! the way that they rummaged round!
Ah me! the startling things they found!
No one with a fair idea of space
Would ever have thought that in one place
Were half the things that, with a shout,
These neighborly burglars hustled out.
Came articles that the Deacon's wives
Had all been gathering half their lives;
Came furniture such as one might see
Didn't grow in the trunk of every tree;
A tall clock, centuries old, 'twas said,
Leaped out of a window, heels o'er head;
A veteran chair, in which, when new,
George Washington sat for a minute or two;
A bedstead strong, as if in its lap
Old Time might take his terminal nap;
Dishes, that in meals long agone
The Deacon's fathers had eaten on;
Clothes, made of every cut and hue,
That couldn't remember when they were new;
A mirror, scathless many a day
('Twas promptly smashed in the regular way);
Old shoes enough, if properly thrown,
To bring good luck to all creatures known;
And children thirteen, more or less,
In varying plenitude of dress.
And that was the sight
We had that night,
When roused, the terrible foe to fight,
Which blazed aloft to a moderate height,
And turned the cheeks of the timid white,
Including Deacon Tompkins.
V.
Lo! where the engines, reeking hot,
Dashed up to the interesting spot:
Came Number Two, "The City's Hope,"
Propelled by a line of men and rope;
And after them, on a spiteful run,
"The Ocean Billows," or Number One.
And soon the two, induced to "play"
By a hundred hands, were working away,
Until, to the Deacon's flustered sight,
As he danced about in his robe of white,
It seemed as if, by the hand of Fate,
House-cleaning day were some two years late,
And with complete though late success,
Had just arrived by the night express.
The "Ocean Billows" were at high tide,
And flung their spray upon every side;
The "City's Hope" were in perfect trim,
Preventing aught like an interim;
And a "Hook-and-Ladder Company" came,
With hooks and ropes and a long hard name,
And with an iconoclastic frown
Were about to pull the whole thing down,
When some one raised the assuring shout,
"It's only the chimney a-burnin' out!"
Whereat, with a sense of injured trust,
The crowd went home in complete disgust.
Scarce one of those who, with joyous shout,
Assisted the Deacon in moving out,
Refrained from the homeward-flowing din,
To help the Deacon at moving in.
And that was the plight
In which, that night,
They left the Deacon, clad in white,
Who felt he was hardly treated right,
And used some words, in the flickering light,
Not orthodox in their purport quite -
Poor, put-out Deacon Tompkins!