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The Grammar School Boys of Gridley, a fiction by H. Irving Hancock |
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Chapter 15. What Grammar School Boys Can Do |
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_ CHAPTER XV. WHAT GRAMMAR SCHOOL BOYS CAN DO Inside of a minute Dick Prescott was both gasping and despairing. Outside the volume of smoke was increasing. Some of it worked in through the cracks around the door. Coughing, choking, trembling in a cold chill of dread, Dick continued frantically to hurl himself against the door. "Can't you get out, Dick?" "I'm awfully afraid I can't." "Nor can I," screamed back Mrs. Dexter, though she was doing nothing besides beating a feeble tattoo with her soft fists against the panels of the door of her prison. "Jane! Jane!" But the housekeeper still lay in a death-like faint above. As for Myra, she slept as only a tired small child can sleep. "Oh, Dick, you must break down your door!" screamed the woman. "Myra--my child--upstairs. She'll be burned to death!" "I'll keep on trying, ma'am, as long as I have any life left," Dick promised, chokingly. Brave words! Young as he was, Dick Prescott was not of the kind to die a coward's death. Yet, in his own mind he was convinced that the door was too stout for him. "You can't save us, can you?" called Mrs. Dexter's own choking tones finally. "I'm still trying, ma'am." "But you don't expect to succeed. Tell me the truth." "I shan't give up, ma'am, but I am afraid that all the chances are against us!" Bang! Bang! went Dick's shoulders against the panels. He was aching now from his hopeless exertions. Yet, every time that he paused he heard the crackling of the flames outside. The sound told him that the woodwork had caught at last. "Dick!" "Yes, ma'am." "I'm quite calm now." "I'm glad to hear that, Mrs. Dexter." "I've stopped thinking of myself, Dick. I know that my little Myra is asleep. She'll suffocate, and won't wake up to know any pain." "But where's your housekeeper?" "She must have slipped out after she put Myra to bed. There's no hope for us, Dick. We must go as bravely as we can. But, my poor boy, I can't tell you how sorry I am that helping me has brought you to such a plight." "But you forget, Mrs. Dexter. Central will send a policeman. He will find out what's wrong here and save us." "Don't try to comfort me with false hopes, Dick. You and I both know that the policeman can't get here in time to save us." This had, indeed, occurred to Dick some moments before, but he wanted to help Mrs. Dexter to keep her courage up as long as possible. "Dick," called a subdued voice, "your mother taught you to pray?" "Oh, yes, ma'am." "Then you know how to pray now--the last chance you'll have." "All right, then," young Prescott shot back to her, "and I'll keep on working while I pray!" Mrs. Dexter did not speak again. The smoke, passing into the closet, had proved too much for her, and she had collapsed on the floor. But Dick, naturally stronger, and with robust lungs, was still fighting bravely, though he was conscious that he was growing feebler and that air was harder to get. Then there came to his ears two sounds of the sweetest description. The first noise was that of running feet. The second was Dave Darrin's voice shouting: "Fellows, there's some fearful work going on here. And here's the fire! Move like lightning! Bring water from the kitchen--in anything." There was a sound of many running feet. Then Dick called, huskily: "Dave, are you there?" "Dick, where are you?" "In this closet--locked in!" "But there doesn't seem to be any key," quivered Darrin. "No; Dexter took that away with him." "Did he set this----" "Yes; but listen! Mrs. Dexter is locked up in the closet opposite." Dave crossed the room in a flash. Finding the key in the lock of the other closet door, Dave Darrin turned it and found Mrs. Dexter lying on the floor. "Fellows!" bawled Dave hoarsely. "Never mind the water. Come here--on the jump!" Half a dozen boys ran back into the room, just in time to see Dave struggling to drag Mrs. Dexter out to the front porch. "One of you help me," directed Darrin. "The others batter down that closet door over there. Dick Prescott is locked up there, and there is no key." "Here's a hatchet," cried another boy, running in from the kitchen. "Clear the way and let me at the door." The boy was Greg Holmes. He brought the hatchet down with telling force at each blow, smashing all the paneling around the lock. In a very few moments Greg had the door open, and he and Dave helped catch Dick as the latter fell forward, dizzy and all but unconscious. "Rush him out on to the front porch!" ordered Dave. "Then we'll come back and fight the fire!" "Has--has anyone turned in an alarm?" inquired Dick, as he reached the porch and took in a life-saving breath of the pure, cool air. "No," admitted Dave. "We forgot that. But I'll run and do it now." "What's the matter? Fire?" called a man from the next yard. "Yes," Dave yelled back. "Run and turn in an alarm, won't you?" "I surely will," came the answer. This left Dave free to remain and do what he could. "I'm all right now," declared Dick, getting up out of the chair into which he had been dropped, though he was not yet any too strong. "Dave, you and the other fellows fight the fire the best you can. Greg, you come upstairs with me, and we'll find Myra and get her out of the smoke." At the head of the stairs Prescott and Holmes found Jane, still in a faint. "We'll need more help to get her downstairs," muttered Dick. "Greg, you find Myra, bundle her in blankets and rush down with her. I'll stay here until you come back." When Greg, after darting downstairs with the child, returned, he had two other boys with him. It took all four to get Jane down and outside to one of the porch chairs. "This is work for the doctor," announced Dick, looking from Jane to Mrs. Dexter. "You other fellows jump in to get the fire out, and I'll 'phone for Dr. Bentley. He's Mrs. Dexter's doctor." While making that comment, Dick darted back to the telephone. As seconds were precious here, he merely called up central and stated what was wanted. Then he ran to join the others. "There's a hose outside this window. I've seen it before," called Prescott, opening the window and jumping outside. Then: "Dave!" "Here I am, Dick." "Here's the hose. I'll pass the nozzle in and then turn the water on." "Bully for you, Handy Andy!" Sizz-zz! Dave directed the stream against the liveliest flames. It was only a lawn-sprinkling hose that he held, but even that threw a lot of water. Dick climbed in through the window again. "We'll hold things down until the firemen get here," he announced energetically. So busy had all been that only two or three out of the ten boys present had noticed that the fire-alarm whistle had called off the box number some time previously. Finally, with a screeching of whistles and a clanging of gongs, a part of the Gridley Fire Department hauled up outside. While hosemen fastened a line to a hydrant, and nozzlemen dragged the lengths in through the wide-open front door, the chief ran ahead of them. "Where's the fire?" he called, and made his way inside. "Well, you boys are dandies!" remarked the chief grimly. Then he ran out to the front door. "Shut that stream off!" the chief bellowed hoarsely. "A lot of Grammar School boys have put the fire out with a lawn hose." Two or three minutes later the policeman whom Prescott had summoned arrived, out of breath. Two minutes after that Dr. Bentley's auto stopped at the door. Both unconscious women were revived, and Myra, who had not once awakened in all the excitement, was taken up and tucked in bed. "How did you get into the house, Dick?" Mrs. Dexter at last found time to inquire. "Why, the door was open just a crack, ma'am, when I got here. I heard Dexter threatening you, and realized that you must be alone. I knew I couldn't do much alone, so I sneaked in as softly as I could and got to the telephone." As soon as he found himself with only his boy friends about, Dick demanded to know how they had arrived so opportunely. "That's easy enough," Dave Darrin explained. "Just after you left me I ran into Greg, Tom, Dan and Harry. I told them where you'd gone, and what the business would probably turn out to be. Then--then--well, we got so awfully curious that we made up our minds to stroll up here to the corner and wait until you came out. Then we ran into four other fellows from our school, and there was a mob of us. To kill time we walked down past. As we went past we saw smoke coming out of one of the open windows on the ground floor. Then Bert Johnson remembered that he had seen Ab. Dexter come out and hurry away. It didn't take us long, then, to make up our minds to get into the house. We found the front door unlocked, and the rest was easy." "We'll get out of here as soon as we can now," hinted Dick. "Why?" Dalzell wanted to know, "This is the center of all the excitement in town to-night." "Yes," Prescott replied, "but as soon as Mrs. Dexter thinks of it she'll send for us and offer more thanks and rewards. We can get away 'most any time now. And there comes her special policeman. Dexter won't be back to-night, anyway." So the Grammar School boys slipped away, but they had added another page to the history of Gridley. Dexter, with his usual luck, appeared to have made a safe retreat. The police paid a visit to his former cave up the road, but did not catch him there, although a police guard was kept at the cave for three days. But Dick received a postal card, on the back of which was printed: "If you ever interfere with me again, I promise you that your luck is at an end!" The message was unsigned, but the message was postmarked at Gridley. _ |
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