Frank Armstrong at Queens by Matthew M. Colton
CHAPTER XXII.
A HEROIC RESCUE.
The encounter between Chip and Jimmy on the ice that afternoon wasthe talk of the whole school at the supper table, and when the twoboys concerned passed near each other on the way out the onlookersstepped aside fearful that something might take place there and then,but nothing happened.
In general the school sympathized with the Freshman, but Dixonwielded so much influence in the school and bullied it sounmercifully that there was not much public expression of opinion. Agood many thought that if it came to a matter of collision betweenthem with a fair field that Jimmy would be Dixon's match, for theyhad seen the former play football, and although he was not as bigas Dixon they knew how sturdy he was, and how determined he wouldprobably be in a fight.
Jimmy, although he knew in his heart that the matter would have tobe settled between them before his school life was over, was verydocile, and when Frank said that evening: "Jimmy, I don't want you toget into any scraps about me. I'd much rather take another cut eyefrom Chip, although I don't relish it a bit, than to have you getinto trouble or get scrapping with anyone on my account. I wantedto go for Dixon myself this afternoon, but you know what the schoolrules are about it--suspension or possible dismissal."
"All right, boss," said Jimmy. "I'll behave, but the big chump mademe mad, first taking our rink and second smashing into you when yourback was turned. You'll have to admit that he got what he deserved. Inoticed that his eye was good and black where he came in contact withthe ice when I tripped him that time he rushed me."
"Just like mine," said Frank, laughing. Frank's eye, too, had a fine,dark tint underneath, and with a piece of sticking plaster over hiseyebrow, he looked anything but attractive.
"Anyone to see you, Frank, would think you had been playingfootball," observed David, "but it might have been worse."
"Yes," returned Frank, "it might have been both eyes."
"It's a better combination," laughed David, "to have one blue one andone black one; kind of gives variety to your features."
There was a knock at the door, and the Wee One strolled into the room.
"Hello, pugilists," he said to Frank and Jimmy. "Understand youare both matched for the heavyweight class. Can't I come in on thescrapping somewhere?"
"You aren't even in the featherweight class," said Gleason.
"What would you call me then?"
"O, I think about the postage-stamp class."
"Well," retorted the Wee One, "I'd be a good postage stamp, for Idon't remember that I've been licked yet."
"Old, very old," said Gleason. "I think I have the record of thathere," and he pretended to search through his notebook. "Yes, hereit is--'postage-stamp joke, first to be taken in out of the wet byNoah's secretary, who had the job of collecting all the old jokes.Said to have first been uttered by Adam.'"
"Well, it's a good easy joke to understand; it isn't like the onesyou get off, Gleason. Yours need a chart with them," retorted the WeeOne.
"We're going to have some big doings at the rink to-morrow afternoon,will you come down and referee, Patty?" said Frank.
"Sure I'll come, and I'm the dandy little referee. Refereed for yearsat the St. Nicholas Rink. Yale, Princeton and Harvard cried for me,and once I was in the hospital, and they wouldn't play the game."
"It's a fine thing to have a reputation," said Jimmy.
"Much better to have an imagination like the Wee One's, though," saidDavid.
"What are the doings?" inquired the referee. "Are you going to takeon Chip's bunch?"
"Not on the picture of the Sacred Cow. We are going to play withgentlemen--that is, we are going to have a game with ourselves. Sincethere will be no more scrapping you will be safe. We will promise notto speak even an unkind word to you," said Frank.
"And I'll be down to keep the record of all the perfectly lovelytallies," said Gleason.
"You will not need to bring a large book. Lewis is goal-tender, andhe's so fat that the only way to score is to throw the puck rightthrough him, and he's so thick that that is about impossible."
After more chaff and banter the Wee One got up.
"I must be going," he said. "I'm tired as a whole family of dogs,and I'm going to sleep without bothering my head about that algebrawhich comes to-morrow morning. If you hear any loud sounds prettysoon you'll not be alarmed, but know that it's your happy refereepreparing for to-morrow's fracas. My room-mate's home for a few days,so I'll have the place all to myself. Good night."
"Good night," echoed the boys. Jimmy took his departure a few minuteslater, and Frank, being tired from the exercise of the afternoon,turned in. David followed as he always followed Frank in everything.Gleason sat pegging away at some obstreperous lesson, and then he,too, with a prodigious yawn, slammed his book shut, and went to hisown chamber. Darkness settled upon the old dormitory, and the boysslept.
Frank was dreaming that he was in the middle of a most excitinghockey game. The puck was flying hither and thither, and thespectators were yelling like mad. Suddenly he woke to therealization that there was a yelling, but that it came from theoutside, and not from the dream spectators. He sat up in bed andlistened. There was a clattering in the entry, a confused sound ofvoices outside, and then the chapel bell began to ring wildly. Whatdid it all mean? David was also awake now and staring. Suddenlythrough all the noise outside rose the clear cry:
"Fire! fire! fire!" The terrible cry in the middle of the nightbrought Frank out of bed standing. He pulled David to his feet,helped him on with a few scanty clothes, and was picking up moreclothes, when one of the teachers burst into the room.
"Warren is on fire," he yelled; "hurry up. Fire in the next entry."
Frank and David lost no time in getting down to the ground wherethey found half of the school already assembled, watching the smokerolling from the entry windows. No one knew how the fire had started,but the night watchman of the school on making his rounds had smelledsmoke, and on investigation located it in the first entry. Quickaction by the watchman had raised the alarm, and the boys all overthe dormitory were flying from their beds as Frank and David andGleason had flown. They gathered outside to watch the progress of theflames.
There was a hasty count of noses by Mr. Parks. "Thank heaven, theyare all out!" he exclaimed. And it was well, for the smoke was nowbeginning to roll threateningly from the upper windows of the entry,and now and then a little glint of flames showed where the fire wasgaining headway. Across the yard came rattling the volunteer fireapparatus manned by some of the bigger boys and the teachers. Queen'shad always boasted a fire department, but there never had been a realtest of it, and now that the test had come they seemed terribly slowin getting the hose attached to the hydrant which was fed from thereservoir upon the hill.
All of a sudden, Frank began to look for the Wee One. A terriblethought came to him that he might still be in his room. "Where isPatterson?" he cried frantically, hoping to hear an answer from theWee One from some safe position on the ground, but there was noanswer. It was with a white face that he turned to Mr. Parks, andsaid: "Patterson must be in his room; he's not down here."
"He couldn't sleep through all this noise, surely not," said Mr.Parks.
"He was in my room last night, and said he was very tired and wouldsleep sound. O, he must be there and we must save him." He rushedto the doorway up which some of the volunteers were trying to carrythe hose, but he was forced back by a dense cloud of black smokewhich whirled down the stairway. The stairway was evidently on firesomewhere up above.
"Come round to the end of Warren," yelled Frank. "One of Patterson'sbedroom windows is on the end of the building." A score of boys,hearing his words, tore around to the end of the building, but theWee One's room was dark.
Frank turned his gaze on the ground, and good fortune favored himwhen he saw a lump of frozen turf which lay by the edge of the walk.He picked it up, and with a throw as accurate as if he were sendinga ball over the plate, he sent the lump of earth smashing th
"What's the matter?" it yelled. "What are you throwing rocks throughmy window for?" The tone was highly indignant.
"The dormitory is afire," yelled the voices below. The white-robedfigure left the bedroom window only to return in a moment.
"The study is full of smoke," shouted the Wee One from his loftyposition. "Someone get a ladder. I'll have to come down this way."He was hanging over the window sill, and leaning far out so he couldmake his voice heard. "It's getting mighty hot here; the fire seemsto be in the entry outside my door, but I've got my door between thebedroom here and the study shut. Won't some one hurry with a ladder?"
"Hurray, here comes the ladder," the crowd shouted as two fellowscame running with the ladder on their shoulders. All hands gaveassistance to planting the ladder firmly, and swung it end up towardthe window. The Wee One had slipped up the lower sash, and wasclimbing out on the narrow ledge, making ready to escape.
"It is too short," cried the crowd below in horror. It was true!The top of the ladder did not reach the ledge, where the Wee Onemaintained with difficulty his slender footing, by at least fivefeet.
"Lift it up," cried some one, and a dozen eager hands seizedthe ladder and pushed its end closer to Patterson, who began tokneel down so that he could put his feet on the top round when itreached him; but just as he was feeling for it the ladder, heldon its foundation of insecure human muscle, swayed, slipped, andwent crashing to the ground where one of its sides snapped like apipe-stem.
When the spectators saw what had happened, a murmur of horror passedtheir lips. There seemed nothing now but death for the boy who clungdesperately to the window thirty feet above them. There was no otherladder, and apparently no human help. By this time the fire had eatena hole in the roof, and was shooting merrily through, lighting thewhole place up with a bright glare. Evidently, too, it had eatenthrough the door of Patterson's study, for little puffs of smokebegan to appear at the end windows of the study, and a glare filledthe room.
The Wee One begged piteously for help, and then, turning, looked intothe room he had just left. Then he turned his face to the ground,and made a movement as if to jump.
"Don't jump, don't jump, don't jump!" yelled the crowd in chorus."Here's a rope for you." Mr. Parks now appeared with a coil of stoutrope and threw it with all his might at the window. It didn't quitecarry up to it. Frantically he snatched it up again and threw. Thistime the unwinding end dropped across the window sill, hung a momentand slipped back before Patterson could grasp it. Mr. Parks triedagain, but this time failed to get the rope near the window.
"Let me have it," said a calm voice at his elbow. "Let me try." Itwas David. All looked at him in open-mouthed astonishment. "I can'tthrow it, I'll carry it."
"How?"
David pointed to the great woodbine vine which, with its stout stem,crept over the whole end of the building. It had been planted manyyears before. Unmolested its tendrils had shot their way into thecrevices between the bricks, making a kind of lattice work. "There'sa chance," he said, "and I'll try. It's the only way to save him.Quick, tie the rope around me and help me to the wall."
Willing fingers knotted the rope around his waist, and bore him tothe wall, the crutches dropping from his hands. They pushed himup the wall as far as they could, and then let go. Up that mat ofwoodbine vine David went like a monkey, the tail of rope dangling outbehind. Where the growth was large he seemed to have no difficulty,but as he advanced there was less grip for his hands, and once hestopped ten feet below the window where the Wee One was hanging.
"He can't make it, he can't make it," moaned the crowd.
But the little hero is only momentarily balked. Holding his weightwith one hand, he tears loose a section of the vine to get a bettergrip, drives his bleeding fingers in between the vine and the bricks,and goes on. Now he is only a few feet below the ledge. Now he hasreached it, thrown a hand over it, and climbed onto it. The crowdbelow are as still as death, but David works with a coolness worthyof the trained fireman. They can even see him smile a little at theWee One, evidently encouraging him. Then he has slipped into theroom, made a hitch securely to the bed leg, which is near the window,and handed the Wee One the rope.
There is not a whisper as the Wee One takes it, gets a coil of therope around his arm and another around his leg, and begins to slide.Below someone is holding the rope out from the wall so he willnot tear himself on the bricks and vines, and almost before it isrealized he is standing on the ground beside them, safe and sound,excepting a few bruises where he came in too close contact with thewall.
And now over the window ledge slides David. He is at home on a rope,thanks to his practice in the gymnasium, and it is but a small trickfor him to slip down its length. And what a cheer bursts from thecrowd as he is grasped in the arms of his friends! He is carriedbodily, like a baby, by half a dozen fellows to one of the Seniorapartments over in Honeywell Hall, where the Wee One has already beentaken, and the school, forgetting the fire in the wonderful act ofbravery, follows at his heels, shouting his name.
In an hour it was all over. The volunteers forced their way up thestairs, got to the fire which had originated in the air shaft, andsucceeded in dampening it with water and chemicals so thoroughly thatit was soon under control. Patterson's room was pretty badly burnedout, and the roof at that point was burned off. But no lives werelost, thanks to David.