This was terrible news, with my husband absent, no man in the house, and a mile and a quarter from any other habitation.  I ran out to ascertain the extent of the misfortune, and found a large fire burning in the roof between the two stove pipes.  The heat of the fires had melted off all the snow, and a spark from the burning pipe had already ignited the shingles.  A ladder, which for several months had stood against the house, had been moved two days before to the barn, which was at the top of the hill, near the road; there was no reaching the fire through that source.  I got out the dining-table, and tried to throw water upon the roof by standing on a chair placed upon it, but I only expended the little water that remained in the boiler, without reaching the fire.  The girl still continued weeping and lamenting.

“You must go for help,” I said.  “Run as fast as you can to my sister’s, and fetch your master.”

“And lave you, ma’arm, and the childher alone wid the burnin’ house?”

“Yes, yes!  Don’t stay one moment.”

“I have no shoes, ma’arm, and the snow is so deep.”

“Put on your master’s boots; make haste, or we shall be lost before help comes.”

The girl put on the boots and started, shrieking “Fire!” the whole way.  This was utterly useless, and only impeded her progress by exhausting her strength.  After she had vanished from the head of the clearing into the wood, and I was left quite alone, with the house burning over my head, I paused one moment to reflect what had best be done.

The house was built of cedar logs; in all probability it would be consumed before any help could arrive.  There was a brisk breeze blowing up from the frozen lake, and the thermometer stood at eighteen degrees below zero.  We were placed between the two extremes of heat and cold, and there was as much danger to be apprehended from the one as the other.  In the bewilderment of the moment, the direful extent of the calamity never struck me; we wanted but this to put the finishing stroke to our misfortunes, to be thrown naked, houseless, and penniless, upon the world.  “What shall I save first?” was the thought just then uppermost in my mind.  Bedding and clothing appeared the most essentially necessary, and without another moment’s pause, I set to work with a right good will to drag all that I could from my burning home.

While little Agnes, Dunbar, and baby Donald filled the air with their cries, Katie, as if fully conscious of the importance of exertion, assisted me in carrying out sheets and blankets, and dragging trunks and boxes some way up the hill, to be out of the way of the burning brands when the roof should fall in.