GOING TO THE FIRE.
THERE is nothing so dreadful as the cry of "Fire" in the night,—unless it
is discovering,
after getting your clothes on wrong, that it was a false
alarm. There is a significance to a cry of "Fire" in a village, which the
city knows not of. In a city, the aroused citizen, on satisfying himself
that the disaster is not near his own premises, retires to bed in the comforting
assurance that he will feast on the particulars in the morning. But, in a
small community, every man is a neighbor: he knows everybody else, and takes
a deep interest in his affairs,—especially in his disaster. He would no
more think of remaining in bed on a cry of "Fire" than he would of remaining
in his grave on the cry of Gabriel. So, when the alarm sounds, the whole
community is aroused, and in a state of intense excitement. The first dash
the awakened citizen makes is over two chairs and a table to the window.
He catches a sight of the flames, and, immediately locating the scene of
the conflagration, goes over the chairs and table again in a search for his
clothes. He would strike a light: but, the instant he touches the match-safe,
it upsets, and throws its contents to the floor; and he might feel around
in the dark for them seven years, without finding one of them. But, darkness
or no darkness, he is deadly earnest. He prances around like a madman; and
every shout and hurrying footstep going by add fresh impetus to his movements.
And, every other time his bare foot descends, it comes down on the heel of
an overturned shoe, and nearly overthrows
him. These shoes are under his
feet all the time till he comes to need them; and then he has to flop down
on his knees, and prowl over the entire floor, before finding them. It is
awful to be in such a nervous state in the dark. To pick up your wife's clothes
ten times to where you do your own once; to strike your naked toes against
the casters of the bed; to step on the round of a chair instead of on the
floor; to get on your pants, and then discover you have left off the drawers;
to try to find the other arm-hole to your vest; to get the left shoe on the
right foot three times in succession; to pull with all your might on a tight
stocking, and find that the heel is on top of your foot,—all these things
are awful. But the climax of the horror is trying to get into a pair of drawers,
one leg of which is wrong side out. You are too excited to discover the error;
although, if you should give the matter an instant of thought, you would
understand that a man never leaves that garment in any other shape on retiring
for the night. But you are too crazed by excitement to think. The whole building
may be burned to the ground before you get there; and this reflection, together
with the awful thought that the fire may be put out before doing much damage,
completely unnerves you. Every movement you have made about the room has
tended to confuse that most valuable garment; and when you finally secure
it, and jab your foot at it
for an opening, the perspiration rolls down your
face to a degree that is blinding. But it is after getting one foot in, and
while waving the other around for the other leglet,—that leglet which is
turned inside out,—that the real agony commences. The thoughts that fill
a man's mind as he reels about like a drunken man, and madly jabs the wondering
foot at the garment in unsuccessful thrusts, cannot be properly depicted.
How he perspires! how he breathes! how he foams at the mouth! how he sobs
and swears!
