“It’s an awful blister,” said Dick, looking at it. “But how did the fire start, Dollums? Did you do it?”
“Yes,” said Dolly, “but I didn’t mean to burn up the cottage.” And then, as Michael and Pat were removing the big rug, and she saw the dreadful devastation of the beautiful dolls’ house, she burst into paroxysms of weeping.
Pinkie did the same, and as the aunts were both softly crying, too, Dick and Jack had to be very careful lest they join the majority.
“Go downstairs, all of yez,” said Michael, again, who had, by reason of his common sense, assumed dictatorship. “Oh, are ye there, Hannah? Take the ladies down, and mend up Miss Dolly’s finger. Boys, ye can shtay, if ye like, but the rest of yez must go.”
Obediently, the aunties followed Hannah, who led the weeping Dolly, and with Pinkie trailing along behind, they went downstairs.
“Now, boys,” said Michael, “ye can help if ye like, an’ ye needn’t, if ye don’t like. Pat an’ me, we’ll clear out this burnt shtuff, but Mashter Dick, suppose ye look about now, an’ see if anny of the toys is worth savin’.”
So Dick and Jack picked out some few things that the flames hadn’t destroyed. But only china or metal toys escaped utter destruction, and these were so smoked and charred, that they weren’t much good. Pinkie’s hat and jacket were scorched, but Jack laid them aside, and the work of salvage went on.
“There now, ye’d betther go,” said Michael; “ye’re good boys, an’ ye’ve helped a lot, but now, me’n Pat, we’ll cart this shtuff down oursilves. An’ be the same token, I’m thinkin’ we’ll dump it out the windy,—that bein’ the quickest way.”
So Dick and Jack ran downstairs, really anxious to join the girls and find out how it all came about.
When the boys reached the group assembled in the library, Dolly had just begun to tell the story of the fire.
Up to that time, the aunts had been employed in dressing the burned finger, and in recovering their own mental poise.
“You see,” Dolly was saying, “it was an accident, Aunt Rachel, but it _wasn’t_ mischief, for you told me yourself how you used to make a fire in that little stove.”
“Oh,” said Aunt Rachel, comprehending at last. “Did you girls make a fire in the playhouse stove?”
“Yes’m; the pipe was up, you know, and it burned all right,—it hardly smoked at all. Then one of the paper dolls fell against it and set fire to all the rest.”