“Do you think I’d stay at home when Crawford’s was a-burning?” returned the captain.

“But remember, father, you ain’t so young as you used to be.  You might catch your death of cold.”

“What! at a fire?” exclaimed the old man, laughing at his own joke.

“You know what I mean.  It’s dreadfully imprudent.  Why, I wouldn’t go myself.”

“Shouldn’t think you would, at your time of life!” retorted her father, chuckling.

So the old man emerged into the street, and hurried as fast as his unsteady limbs would allow, to the fire.

“How did it catch?” the reader will naturally ask.

The young man who was the only other salesman besides Ben and the proprietor, had gone down cellar smoking a cigar.  In one corner was a heap of shavings and loose papers.  A spark from his cigar must have fallen there.  Had he noticed it, with prompt measures the incipient fire might have been extinguished.  But he went up stairs with the kerosene, which he had drawn for old Mrs. Watts, leaving behind him the seeds of destruction.  Soon the flames, arising, caught the wooden flooring of the upper store.  The smell of the smoke notified Crawford and his clerks of the impending disaster.  When the door communicating with the basement was opened, a stifling smoke issued forth and the crackling of the fire was heard.

“Run, Ben; give the alarm!” called Mr. Crawford, pale with dismay and apprehension.  It was no time then to inquire how the fire caught.  There was only time to save as much of the stock as possible, since it was clear that the fire had gained too great a headway to be put out.

Ben lost no time, and in less than ten minutes the engine, which, fortunately, was housed only ten rods away, was on the ground.  Though it was impossible to save the store, the fire might be prevented from spreading.  A band of earnest workers aided Crawford in saving his stock.  A large part, of course, must be sacrificed; but, perhaps, a quarter was saved.

All at once a terrified whisper spread from one to another: 

“Mrs. Morton’s children!  Where are they?  They must be in the third story.”

A poor woman, Mrs. Morton, had been allowed, with her two children, to enjoy, temporarily, two rooms in the third story.  She had gone to a farmer’s two miles away to do some work, and her children, seven and nine years of age, had remained at home.  They seemed doomed to certain death.

But, even as the inquiry went from lip to lip, the children appeared.  They had clambered out of a third story window upon the sloping roof of the rear ell, and, pale and dismayed, stood in sight of the shocked and terrified crowd, shrieking for help!

“A ladder!  A ladder!” exclaimed half a dozen.

But there was no ladder at hand—­none nearer than Mr. Parmenter’s, five minutes’ walk away.  While a messenger was getting it the fate of the children would be decided.