Now the cry of “Fire!” echoed through the settlement.
It was caught up on every corner. Negroes seized their shotguns and pistols and ran down the street, firing them into the air--the fire-signal in all Southern villages.
Vinegar Atts, standing in the pulpit of the Shoofly Church, paused in the midst of a fiery exhortation, listened to the cry of “Fire!” ringing through the settlement.
“Fire!” Vinegar bellowed, and started in a lope for the street, leading all the congregation in the race. They, with the other inhabitants of Dirty-Six, gladly assembled, not at the scene of the fire, but at the engine-house!
The bell-rope was gone. Some little piccaninny had needed a rope to tie his dog and had helped himself.
Two or three boys tried to climb the post and ring the bell, but they could not reach it.
“Open de door an’ fotch out de engyne!” the crowd whooped.
Forty men ran their hands into their pockets and brought them out empty. They did not have the key to the door. They had never had the key. The action was mechanical and unconscious.
Who had the key? No one knew. It had been two years since any one had entered the building. The door was locked and the key was lost.
“Bust de door down!” was the next call from the crowd.
Strong shoulders were pressed against the fragile door, and the crash of its timbers was answered by the shouts of the people and the onrush of the crowd. They laid hold upon the rope and pulled the machine to the scene of the fire.
Down the alley by the side of the house they ran, broke down the fence and pulled the machine into the yard. With many shouts they unwound the hose, attached it to the engine, turned the faucets and began to pump.
From the hose came a long whistling sound of air:
Not a drop of chemical water. The celebration two years before had exhausted the chemical, and the engine had never been recharged. The hen-house burned without interruption.
Ginny Babe Chew turned toward that crowd of heroic negro firemen, and the pumps of her profanity worked without a hitch as she poured out a stream of sulphurous and vitriolic language upon their luckless heads. Skeeter Butts still hung to the tree with both hands, laughing with whoops like a yelling Comanche.