It Happened at the Fair (21 page)

“Thank you.” He told of his delight with Helen Keller, briefly spoke of his deaf wife, then revealed his grave concerns about the use of sign language. Last, he mentioned his course for teachers of the deaf at the Boston University School of Oratory.

“As a matter of fact,” he said, “one of my graduates is here at the fair instructing young deaf students in the Children’s Building. If you’ve not been to their exhibit, I suggest you make it a high priority. And be sure to ask for Miss Adelaide Wentworth—a name to pay attention to as we strive to liberate the deaf through lip-reading and stamp out sign language once and for all.”

Della flushed with pleasure. Cullen assumed Bell hadn’t seen her in the audience, otherwise he most likely would have pointed her out.

As the crowd broke up, she touched Cullen’s arm. “Come. I want to introduce you to Dr. Bell.”

He pulled back, his gaze shooting to the front. Dr. Bell, whose name was carved on one of the tablets above Machinery Hall, was holding a lively conversation with Miss Keller and her teacher, Miss Sullivan. “He’s a bit occupied right now, and I don’t think he realizes you’re even here.”

“That won’t matter a bit.” She waved her hand in a dismissive gesture. “He came by the Children’s Building to see me and has promised to introduce me to Miss Keller at some point. May as well be now.”

Clearing his throat, he took a half step back. “You go ahead. I’ll wait just outside the door.”

Her face wilted. “You don’t want to meet them?”

“I, I wouldn’t know what to say.”

“What about, ‘How do you do. So nice to meet you’?”

He immediately thought of their sign-language lesson in the rose garden. She’d taught him those phrases. Her hands moving in a beautiful pantomime. Graceful, supple hands that had become way too alluring.

He continued walking backward and indicated the exit with his thumb. “No, you go on. I’ll be right outside the door. Take your time.”

She looked to the front of the room, then back at him. “You’re sure?”

“Positive.” Turning, he quickly joined the rest of the crowd.

She didn’t make him wait long, and her excitement over meeting Miss Keller was infectious. “She’s been given special permission to touch some of the exhibits so she can ‘see’ them—even the African diamonds. And she’s so sweet, Cullen.”

“She spoke to you?”

“She did.”

“And she put her hand on your face while you were talking?”

“Yes, it was—”

Ringing gongs, piercing whistles, and the clattering of hooves blasted them from behind. “Clear the track!”

Cullen grabbed Della by the waist and swung her to the edge of the thoroughfare.

Big, powerful horses leaped by pulling a fire engine, its driver half-crouched in the seat. Swift hose carriages, rattling hook-and-ladder trucks, well-secured water towers, and patrol wagons loaded with firemen followed close behind.

“That’s John’s battalion,” Cullen said, pointing.

“What?”

Nearby guards shouted themselves hoarse warning pedestrians to move out of the way. Boys in blue who hawked guidebooks hurried from their posts in the wake of the engines.

Grabbing Della’s elbow, Cullen quickened their pace. “John’s on duty today.”

“John?”

“John Ransom. The fireman who works the booth beside mine. I’ve told you about him.”

She nodded. “I remember.”

“He’s so proud of the work he does. It would please him to no end if he found out I saw him in action.” He stopped suddenly. “Is that okay? I know you said you wanted to go to the Midway Plaisance.”

“It’s fine. We can always go afterward.” Gasping, she pointed. “Cullen, look.”

Turning around, he scanned the horizon. The Cold Storage Building’s central tower had a small jet of flame dancing about its head.

“This will be the fourth time that tower’s caught fire,” he said.

“The fourth time?” She studied it for a moment. “It doesn’t look too serious, does it?”

“No, it looks more like a flame that comes from the chimney of a rolling mill.” He quickly guided her through the Court of Honor.

A second alarm sounded. Buildings began to empty. Passengers in gondolas urged their crews to change their course and follow the crowd. Curious fairgoers spread the word—the smokestack of the Cold Storage Building was on fire.

Releasing her elbow, he clasped her hand. “Hold on tight. I don’t want to lose you. All right?”

“All right.”

By the time they reached the Cold Storage Building, streams of people poured around every corner. Straight ahead, a company of firemen in red shirts uncoiled hoses from their engines and wagons in a nonchalant manner. If it weren’t for yellow flames in the cupola, Cullen would have assumed the department was out on dress parade doing a demonstration for the crowds.

FIRE ENGINE

He scanned the men, finally spotting John. “There he is.” He pointed. “The short one. See him?”

She furrowed her brows, then smiled. “Yes. I think so. He has a number one on his helmet?”

“Right. All the boys in Company One do.”

Another group leaned a five-story ladder against the roof of the building.

Tall parapets stood on each of its four corners, topped with flags snapping in a northeasterly direction. A steeple-like tower three times the height of the parapets rose from the roof’s center. On its side, huge painted letters spelled out “Hercules Ice-Skating Rink.” Above it a railed ledge. And above that, the fire.

COLD STORAGE BUILDING

Della touched his sleeve. “Who’s the man in the white helmet?”

“That’s Chief Murphy. He and Chief Swenie are in charge of all the fair’s battalions.”

“Fitzgerald,” Murphy shouted. “Go up to the cupola with Companies One and Two and we’ll hoist some hoses to you. If the fire gets too hot, there are lifelines hanging on the west side of the tower.”

Cullen glanced at the left face of the tower. Painters’ ropes hung from a ledge near the top all the way down to within a few feet of the roof.

“Pshaw,” said Fitzgerald. “We’ll put this one out just like we did the others.”

Companies One and Two headed toward the building’s entrance, John becoming lost in their midst.

“There’s a winding staircase inside,” Cullen explained to her. “They’ll have to climb clear up there with their axes, ropes, and everything.”

“What about the ice-skaters?” she asked.

“The rink was listed in the paper as one of this week’s closed exhibits. It was having mechanical problems, I think, so there shouldn’t be anyone in there other than a few guards, carpenters, and engineers. They’ll evacuate at the first sign of trouble, if they haven’t already.”

On the ground, Chief Murphy slung a coiled rope over his head and shoulder, then mounted a ladder that stretched five stories high. His men followed suit. The moment they reached the roof, they secured their ropes to cornices and called for hoses and more ladders.

The crowd swelled. Columbian Guards in blue-braided uniforms began to push them back in order to make room for the firemen.

Cullen glanced at Della. “You stay close. The crowd is starting to grow.”

“I will. And we’re right here at the front. Plenty of room.”

He thought he’d have plenty of room on opening day too. This group didn’t compare to that one, but even so, he didn’t want to subject her to anything like that again.

A loud cheer erupted from the crowd.

Cullen glanced up at the building. Black silhouettes of about thirty firemen appeared on the uppermost ledge of the tower just below the cupola and fire. John was easy to spot, short as he was. Kneeling down, he began to haul up a hose attached to a painter’s rope. The man beside him let his rope down.

The flames consuming the crown of the tower grew. Pieces of blazing wood dropped inside the inner walls of the tower.

As there was scant room to work, one of the men fastened his hose to the balcony with a rope before bringing up another one. Cullen marveled at their calm confidence. The ledge was a good hundred feet higher than the roof. The only thing between them and a ten-story drop was that bit of cornice molding along the edges.

John captured a hose, released it from the rope, and stood in readiness, as did several others. One of them cupped a hand around his mouth and shouted to Chief Murphy. Cullen wondered if he was their leader, Fitzgerald.

“Cullen,” Della gasped. “Look.”

He followed the direction of her finger. Trails of smoke slithered through crevices around the painted “Ice-Skating” sign. Unease began to creep through him. Something below John was on fire. He hoped it didn’t block the winding staircase the men had planned to descend.

Chief Murphy leaned over the edge of the roof. “A hundred-twenty-five pounds, boys,” he shouted to the engines on the ground.

At the command for water, the crowd whistled and waved their hats. But Murphy’s back was to the tower, making him unaware of the new menace.
Turn around
, Cullen thought.

Finally, he did. Pandemonium struck as he and the crowd caught sight of the increasing smoke underneath the men. Firemen on the roof shouted to their comrades on the tower. Spectators screeched their warnings. The men on the ledge either didn’t hear or shrugged it off.

Leaning over, Cullen put his mouth close to Della’s ear. “There are numerous escape lines hanging from the tower to the roof below. And look.” He pointed to Engine One on the ground. “They’re almost ready for action. They’ll pump water up before you—”

A deafening explosion cut off his sentence. Flames and thick rolling fumes erupted from a portico halfway up the tower, igniting its staff-covered walls.

Women screamed, their shrieks rising above the roaring and crackling of the flames. Della slammed her hands over her mouth. Cullen sucked in his breath, gooseflesh skittering down his spine.

The firemen on the roof who had shouted warnings mere seconds before stood frozen in silent shock.

Through a veil of smoke, John and the men in his company scurried back and forth on their prison ledge, looking for a means of escape.

Above them, the dome burned furiously, its cupola white with heat. Below, the portico blazed on all four sides, each archway a seething, open furnace door.

There would be no getting down the staircase, for the interior of the tower emitted black smoke streaked with cyclones of flame. Escaping down the painters’ ropes, however, would mean sliding right through the fire before reaching the other end.

A third alarm sounded. Columbian Guards shouted at the crowd across from them who blocked the thoroughfare, then urged them to make way for more engines.

Chief Murphy barked an order to the men on the ground. They sprang to the hook-and-ladder wagons, then began the slow process of hoisting big ladders up to the roof.

Cullen swung his attention back to John. There was no time. Not near enough to wait on those ladders. And even if they could get them up, they wouldn’t be anywhere close to ten stories high.

One black silhouette grasped the hose he’d tied to the cornice and swung over the balcony.

Not a sound issued forth as the crowd held its collective breath.

Fire enveloped the man momentarily before he shot down to the bottom of the hose, then made a short leap to the roof. His clothes were on fire, but fellow firefighters rushed to assist him.

A roar of approval shook the ground as hope sprung anew.

“Was that John?” Della asked.

Cullen shook his head. “No, he’s in the middle.” He pointed. “See him?”

“Yes.”

Thousands of voices called to the men, begging them to slide.

Go, John,
he urged.
Go.

But he and the other men hesitated. And in those precious seconds, a gust of wind swept flames around the hoses, melted the rubber, and burned them in two. They coiled down like dead snakes, then disappeared into the fire.

The hair along Cullen’s arms and neck rose.

In a black knot, John and the others clustered about one man. By his gestures, it was evident he was issuing orders.

Cullen looked at the painters’ ropes, still intact.

Go,
he begged.
Quit talking and go.