Beautiful Joe (23 page)

They all
seemed very friendly. The ponies turned around and looked at me with their
gentle eyes, and then went on munching their hay. I wondered very much where
the gander was, and went a little farther into the stable. Something white
raised itself up out of the brownest pony’s crib, and there was the gander
close up beside the open mouth of his friend. The monkeys make a jabbering
noise, and held on to the bars of their cage with their little black hands,
while they looked out at me. The dogs sniffed the air, and wagged their tails,
and tried to put their muzzles through the bars of their cages.

I liked
the dogs best, and I wanted to see the one they called Bob, so I went up quite
close to them. There were two little white dogs, something like Billy, two
mongrel spaniels, an Irish terrier, and a brown dog asleep in the corner, that
I knew must be Bob. He did look a little like me, but he was not quite so ugly
for he had his ears and his tail. While I was peering through the bars at him,
a man came in the stable. He noticed me the first thing, but instead of driving
me out, he spoke kindly to me, in a language that I did not understand. So I
knew that he was the Italian. How glad the animals were to see him! The gander fluttered
out of his nest, the ponies pulled at their halters, the dogs whined and tried
to reach his hands to lick them, and the monkeys chattered with delight. He
laughed and talked back to them in queer, soft-sounding words. Then he took out
of a bag on his arm, bones for the dogs, nuts and cakes for the monkeys, nice,
juicy carrots for the ponies, some green stuff for the goats, and corn for the
gander.

It was a
pretty sight to see the old man feeding his pets, and it made me feel quite
hungry, so I trotted home. I had a run downtown again that evening with Mr.
Morris, who went to get something from a shop for his wife. He never let his
boys go to town after tea, so if there were errands to be done, he or Mrs.
Morris went. The town was bright and lively that evening, and a great many
people were walking about and looking into the shop windows.

When we
came home, I went into the kennel with Jim, and there I slept till the middle
of the night. Then I started up and ran outside. There was a distant bell
ringing, which we often heard in Fairport, and which always meant fire.

I had
several times run to a fire with the boys, and knew that there was always great
noise and excitement. There was a light in the house, so I knew that somebody
was getting up. I don’t think—indeed I know, for they were good boys—that they
ever wanted anybody to lose property, but they did enjoy seeing a blaze, and
one of their greatest delights, when there hadn’t been a fire for some time,
was to build a bonfire in the garden.

Jim and I
ran around to the front of the house and waited. In a few minutes, someone came
rattling at the front door, and I was sure it was Jack. But it was Mr. Morris,
and without a word to us, he set off almost running toward the town. We
followed after him, and as we hurried along other men ran out from the houses
along the streets, and either joined him; or dashed ahead. They seemed to have
dressed in a hurry, and were thrusting their arms in their coats, and buttoning
themselves up as they went. Some of them had hats and some of them had none, and
they all had their faces toward the great red light that got brighter and
brighter ahead of us.

“Where’s
the fire?” they shouted to each other. “Don’t know—afraid it’s the hotel, or
the town hall—hope not. It’s such a blaze. Hope not. How’s the water supply
now? Bad time for a fire.”

It was the
hotel. We saw that as soon as we got on to the main street. There were people
all about, and a great noise and confusion, and smoke and blackness; and up
above, bright tongues of flame were leaping against the sky. Jim and I kept
close to Mr. Morris’s heels, as he pushed his way among the crowd. When we got
nearer the burning building, we saw men carrying ladders and axes, and others
were shouting directions, and rushing out of the hotel, carrying boxes and bundles
and furniture in their arms. From the windows above came a steady stream of articles,
thrown among the crowd. A mirror struck Mr. Morris on the arm, and a whole
package of clothes fell on his head and almost smothered him; but he brushed
them aside and scarcely noticed them.

There was something
the matter with Mr. Morris I knew by the worried sound of his voice when he
spoke to anyone. I could not see his face, though it was as light as day about
us, for we had got jammed in the crowd, and if I had not kept between his feet,
I should have been trodden to death. Jim, being larger than I was, had got
separated from us.

Presently
Mr. Morris raised his voice above the uproar, and called, “Is every one out of
the hotel?” A voice shouted back, “I’m going up to see.”

“It’s Jim
Watson, the fireman,” cried someone near. “He’s risking his life to go into
that pit of flame. Don’t go, Watson.” I don’t think that the brave fireman paid
any attention to this warning, for an instant later the same voice said “He’s planting
his ladder against the third story. He’s bound to go. He’ll not get any farther
than the second, anyway.”

“Where are
the Montagues?” shouted Mr. Morris. “Has any one seen the Montagues?”

“Mr.
Morris! Mr. Morris!” said a frightened voice, and young Charlie Montague
pressed through the people to us. “Where’s papa?”

“I don’t
know. Where did you leave him?” said Mr. Morris, taking his hand and drawing
him closer to him. “I was sleeping in his room,” said the boy, “and a man
knocked at the door and said, ‘Hotel on fire. Five minutes to dress and get
out,’ and papa told me to put on my clothes and go downstairs, and he ran up to
mamma.”

“Where was
she?” asked Mr. Morris, quickly.

“On the
fourth flat. She and her maid Blanche were up there. You know, mamma hasn’t
been well and couldn’t sleep, and our room was so noisy that she moved upstairs
where it was quiet.” Mr. Morris gave a kind of groan. “Oh I’m so hot, and there’s
such a dreadful noise,” said the little boy, bursting into tears, “and I want mamma.”
Mr. Morris soothed him as best he could, and drew him a little to the edge of
the crowd.

While he
was doing this, there was a piercing cry. I could not see the person making it,
but I knew it was the Italian’s voice. He was screaming, in broken English that
the fire was spreading to the stables, and his animals would be burned. Would
no one help him to get his animals out? There was a great deal of confused
language. Some voices shouted, “Look after the people first. Let the animals
go.” And others said, “For shame. Get the horses out.” But no one seemed to do
anything, for the Italian went on crying for help. I heard a number of people
who were standing near us say that it had just been found out that several persons
who had been sleeping in the top of the hotel had not got out. They said that
at one of the top windows a poor housemaid was shrieking for help. Here in the
street we could see no one at the upper windows, for smoke was pouring from
them.

The air
was very hot and heavy and I didn’t wonder that Charlie Montague felt ill. He
would have fallen on the ground if Mr. Morris hadn’t taken him in his arms, and
carried him out of the crowd. He put him down on the brick sidewalk, and
unfastened his little shirt, and left me to watch him, while he held his hands
under a leak in a hose that was fastened to a hydrant near us. He got enough
water to dash on Charlie’s face and breast, and then seeing that the boy was
reviving, he sat down on the curbstone and took him on his knee. Charlie lay in
his arms and moaned. He was a delicate boy, and he could not stand rough usage
as the Morris boys could.

Mr. Morris
was terribly uneasy. His face was deathly white, and he shuddered whenever
there was a cry from the burning building. “Poor souls—God help them. Oh, this
is awful,” he said; and then he turned his eyes from the great sheets of flame
and strained the little boy to his breast. At last there were wild shrieks that
I knew came from no human throats. The fire must have reached the horses. Mr.
Morris sprang up, then sank back again. He wanted to go, yet he could be of no
use. There were hundreds of men standing about, but the fire had spread so
rapidly, and they had so little water to put on it that there was very little they
could do. I wondered whether I could do anything for the poor animals. I was
not afraid of fire, as most dogs, for one of the tricks that the Morris boys
had taught me was to put out a fire with my paws. They would throw a piece of
lighted paper on the floor, and I would crush it with my forepaws; and if the
blaze was too large for that, I would drag a bit of old carpet over it and jump
on it.

I left Mr.
Morris, and ran around the corner of the street to the back of the hotel. It
was not burned as much here as in the front, and in the houses all around,
people were out on their roofs with wet blankets, and some were standing at the
window watching the fire, or packing up their belongings ready to move if it
should spread to them. There was a narrow lane running up a short distance toward
the hotel, and I started to go up this, when in front of me I heard such a
wailing, piercing noise, that it made me shudder and stand still. The Italian’s
animals were going to be burned up and they were calling to their master to
come and get them out. Their voices sounded like the voices of children in
mortal pain. I could not stand it. I was seized with such an awful horror of the
fire that I turned and ran, feeling so thankful that I was not in it. As I got
into the street I stumbled over something. It was a large bird a parrot, and at
first I thought it was Bella. Then I remembered hearing Jack say that the
Italian had a parrot. It was not dead, but seemed stupid with the smoke. I
seized it in my mouth, and ran and laid it at Mr. Morris’s feet. He wrapped it
in his handkerchief, and laid it beside him.

I sat, and
trembled, and did not leave him again. I shall never forget that dreadful
night. It seemed as if we were there for hours, but in reality it was only a
short time. The hotel soon got to be all red flames, and there was very little
smoke. The inside of the budding had burned away, and nothing more could be
gotten out. The firemen and all the people drew back, and there was no noise.
Everybody stood gazing silently at the flames. A man stepped quietly up to Mr.
Morris, and looking at him, I saw that it was Mr. Montague. He was usually a well-dressed
man, with a kind face, and a head of thick, grayish brown hair. Now his face
was black and grimy, his hair was burnt from the front of his head, and his
clothes were half torn from his back. Mr. Morris sprang up when he saw him, and
said “Where is your wife?”

The
gentleman did not say a word, but pointed to the burning building. “Impossible!”
cried Mr. Morris. “Is there no mistake? Your beautiful young wife, Montague.
Can it be so?” Mr. Morris was trembling from head to foot.

“It is
true,” said Mr. Montague, quietly. “Give me the boy.” Charlie had fainted again
and his father took him in his arms, and turned away.

“Montague!”
cried Mr. Morris, “my heart is sore for you. Can I do nothing?”

“No, thank
you,” said the gentleman, without turning around; but there was more anguish in
his voice than in Mr. Morris’s, and though I am only a dog, I knew that his
heart was breaking.

Mr. Morris
stayed no longer. He followed Mr. Montague along the sidewalk a little way, and
then exchanged a few hurried words with some men who were standing near, and
hastened home through streets that seemed dark and dull after the splendor of
the fire. Though it was still the middle of the night, Mrs. Morris was up and
dressed and waiting for him. She opened the hall door with one hand and held a
candle in the other. I felt frightened and miserable, and didn’t want to leave
Mr. Morris, so I crept in after him.

“Don’t
make a noise,” said Mrs. Morris. “Laura and the boys are sleeping, and I
thought it better not to wake them. It has been a terrible fire, hasn’t it? Was
it the hotel?” Mr. Morris threw himself into a chair and covered his face with
his hands.

“Speak to
me, William!” said Mrs. Morris, in a startled tone. “You are not hurt, are you?”
and she put her candle on the table and came and sat down beside him.

He dropped
his hands from his face, and tears were running down his cheeks. “Ten lives
lost,” he said; “among them Mrs. Montague.”

Mrs.
Morris looked horrified, and gave a little cry, “William, it can’t be so!”

It seemed
as if Mr. Morris could not sit still. He got up and walked to and fro on the
floor. “It was an awful scene, Margaret. I never wish to look upon the like
again. Do you remember how I protested against the building of that deathtrap.
Look at the wide, open streets around it, and yet they persisted in running it
up to the sky. God will require an account of those deaths at the hands of the
men who put up that building. It is terrible this disregard of human lives. To
think of that delicate woman and her death agony.” He threw himself in a chair
and buried his face in his hands.

“Where was
she? How did it happen? Was her husband saved, and Charlie?” said Mrs. Morris,
in a broken voice.

“Yes;
Charlie and Mr. Montague are safe. Charlie will recover from it. Montague’s
life is done. You know his love for his wife. Oh, Margaret! when will men cease
to be fools? What does the Lord think of them when they say, ‘Am I my brother’s
keeper?’ And the other poor creatures burned to death—their lives are as
precious in his sight as Mrs. Montague’s.”

Mr. Morris
looked so weak and ill that Mrs. Morris, like a sensible woman, questioned him
no further, but made a fire and got him some hot tea. Then she made him lie
down on the sofa, and she sat by him till daybreak, when she persuaded him to
go to bed. I followed her about, and kept touching her dress with my nose. It
seemed so good to me to have this pleasant home after all the misery I had seen
that night. Once she stopped and took my head between her hands, “Dear old Joe,”
she said, tearfully, “this is a suffering world. It’s well there’s a better one
beyond it.”

In the morning
the boys went downtown before breakfast and learned all about the fire. It
started in the top story of the hotel, in the room of some fast young men, who
were sitting up late playing cards. They had smuggled wine into their room and
had been drinking till they were stupid. One of them upset the lamp, and when
the flames began to spread so that they could not extinguish them, instead of
rousing someone near them, they rushed downstairs to get someone there to come
up and help them put out the fire. When they returned with some of the hotel
people, they found that the flames had spread from their room, which was in an
“L” at the back of the house, to the front part, where Mrs. Montague’s room
was, and where the housemaids belonging to the hotel slept. By this time Mr.
Montague had gotten upstairs, but he found the passageway to his wife’s room so
full of flames and smoke, that, though he tried again and again to force his
way through, he could not. He disappeared for a time, then he came to Mr.
Morris and got his boy, and took him to some rooms over his bank, and shut
himself up with him.

For some
days he would let no one in; then he came out with the look of an old man on
his face, and his hair as white as snow, and went out to his beautiful house in
the outskirts of the town.

Nearly all
the horses belonging to the hotel were burned. A few were gotten out by having
blankets put over their heads, but the most of them were so terrified that they
would not stir.

The Morris
boys said that they found the old Italian sitting on an empty box, looking at
the smoking ruins of the hotel. His head was hanging on his breast, and his
eyes were full of tears. His ponies were burned up, he said, and the gander,
and the monkeys, and the goat, and his wonderful performing dogs. He had only
his birds left, and he was a ruined man. He had toiled all his life to get this
troupe of trained animals together, and now they were swept from him. It was
cruel and wicked, and he wished he could die. The canaries, and pigeons, and doves,
the hotel people had allowed him to take to his room, and they were safe. The
parrot was lost—an educated parrot that could answer forty questions, and,
among other things, could take a watch and tell the time of day.

Jack
Morris told him that they had it safe at home, and that it was very much alive,
quarrelling furiously with his parrot Bella. The old man’s face brightened at
this, and then Jack and Carl, finding that he had had no breakfast, went off to
a restaurant nearby, and got him some steak and coffee. The Italian was very
grateful, and as he ate, Jack said the tears ran into his coffee cap. He told
them how much he loved his animals, and how it “made ze heart bitter to hear
zem crying him to deliver zem from ze raging fire.”

The boys came
home, and got their breakfast and went to school. Miss Laura did not go out She
sat all day with a very quiet, pained face and could neither read nor sew, and
Mr. and Mrs. Morris were just as unsettled. They talked about the fire in low
tones, and I could see that they felt more sad about Mrs. Montague’s death than
if she had died in an ordinary way. Her dear little canary Barry, died with
her. She would never be separated from him, and his cage had been taken up to
the top of the hotel with her. He probably died an easier death than his poor mistress.
Charley’s dog escaped, but was so frightened that he ran out to their house,
outside the town.

At tea
time, Mr. Morris went downtown to see that the Italian got a comfortable place
for the night. When he came back, he said that he had found out that the
Italian was by no means so old a man as he looked and that he had talked to him
about raising a sum of money for him among the Fairport people, till he had
become quite cheerful, and said that if Mr. Morris would do that, he would try
to gather another troupe of animals together and train them.

“Now, what
can we do for the Italian?” asked Mrs. Morris. “We can’t give him much money,
but we might let him have one or two of our pets. There’s Billy, he’s a bright,
little dog, and not two years old yet. He could teach him anything.”

There was
a blank silence among the Morris children. Billy was such a gentle, lovable,
little dog, that he was a favorite with everyone in the house. “I suppose we
ought to do it,” said Miss Laura, at last; “but how can we give him up?”

There was
a good deal of discussion, but the end of it was that Billy was given to the
Italian. He came up to get him, and was very grateful, and made a great many
bows, holding his hat in his hand. Billy took to him at once, and the Italian
spoke so kindly to him, that we knew he would have a good master. Mr. Morris
got quite a large sum of money for him, and when he handed it to him, the poor
man was so pleased that he kissed his hand, and promised to send frequent word
as to Billy’s progress and welfare.