“There’s a fire at Scheckennarre’s, at Hirlingen!” was the cry outside.  The engine was brought out, and Barefoot climbed upon it and rode away with the firemen.

“My Damie!  My Damie!” she kept repeating to herself in great alarm.  But it was day-time, and in the day-time people could not be burned to death in a fire.  And sure enough, when they arrived at Hirlingen, the house was already in ashes.  Beside the road, in an orchard, stood Damie in the act of tying two piebalds,—­fine, handsome horses,—­to a tree; and oxen, bulls, and cows were all running about in confusion.

They stopped the engine to let Barefoot get off, and with a cry of “God be praised that nothing has happened to you!” she hurried toward her brother.  Damie, however, made no reply, and stood with both hands resting on the neck of one of the horses.

“What is it?  Why don’t you speak?  Have you hurt yourself?”

“I have not hurt myself, but the fire has hurt me.”

“What’s the matter?”

“All I have is lost—­all my clothes and my little bit of money!  I’ve nothing now but what’s on my back.”

“And are father’s clothes burnt too?”

“Are they fireproof?” replied Damie, angrily.  “Don’t ask such stupid questions!”

Barefoot was ready to cry at this ungracious reception by her brother; but she quickly remembered, as if by intuition, that misfortune in its first shock often makes people harsh, unkind, and quarrelsome.  So she merely said: 

“Thank God that you have escaped with your life!  Father’s clothes—­to be sure, in those there’s something lost that cannot be replaced—­but sooner or later they would have been worn out anyway.”

“All your chattering will do no good,” said Damie, still stroking the horse.  “Here I stand like a miserable outcast.  If the horses here could talk, they’d tell a different story.  But I am born to misfortune—­whatever I do that’s good, is of no use.  And yet—­” He could say no more; his voice faltered.

“What has happened?”

“There are the horses, and the cows, and the oxen—­not one of them was burned.  Look, that horse over there tore my shirt when I was dragging him out of the stable.  This nigh horse here did me no harm—­he knows me.  Eh, Humple, you know me, don’t you?  We know each other, don’t we?” The horse laid his head across the neck of the other and stared at Damie, who went on: 

“And when I joyfully went to tell the farmer that I had saved all his cattle, he said:  ’You needn’t have done it—­they were all well insured, and I would have been paid good money for them.’  ‘Yes,’ thinks I to myself, ’but to have let the poor beasts die, is that nothing?  If a thing’s paid for, is that all?’ The farmer must have read in my face what I was thinking of, for he says to me:  ’Of course, you saved your clothes and your property?’ And then I says:  ’No, not a stitch.  I ran out to the stable directly.’