The fire and the gold (6 page)

He told her how he had been thrown out of bed to find the floor rolling like waves at sea, and things crashing all through the house. He had run into his mother's room and in the early morning light he had found her trying to steady herself against the wall. Cora came in too and they all clung to each other. It had seemed like forever before it stopped, though he guessed it was less than a minute.

"What about Gran?" Melora asked.

"It's funny about Gran," Alec puzzled. "Day before yesterday she stayed in bed and wouldn't get up at all. Mama and Quong Sam were real worried about her. Mama said it was just like she had stopped being interested in living. She's been getting more and more like that lately. She didn't even get out of bed during the earthquake. But then, after the shaking stopped, Mama just slid down the wall in a faint. Quong Sam came rushing upstairs and said we'd better all get outside—but there was Mama on the floor and he went across the hall to get Gran. I could hear him sort of scolding her the way he does. He was saying, "You boss Missy now, you boss Missy!"

"When he brought her in. Gran was leaning on him and looking as if she didn't know just what was happening until she saw Mama on the floor, all white and still. That was when I was most scared, Melora, and I guess I started to cry. But Gran seemed to wake up and she just gave me a look. Then she said, 'Well, I suppose somebody's got to do it,' and she's been the boss Missy ever since. Melora, what about Papa?"

The crowd had grown so thick in the square that they cut down toward Gough Street where it met Washington. Melora squeezed Alec's hand.

"We'll have to find a way to let him know we're all right. He'll be terribly worried, of course. But there isn't anything we can do now."

Streaming west along Washington was the familiar rivers of wagons and carts, a sprinlihng of automobiles and hundreds of refugees. But now Melora noted the great number of Chinese. So Chinatown too had burned during the night.

They fell in with the throngs on the sidewalk, but no one looked at them or paid any attention. Today the refugees were more dazed and weary than they had been the day before. All they could manage was to put one foot in front of the other and struggle along under the burden of goods they had piled on their backs or all manner of conveyance—anything that could be carried or dragged.

Before they reached the Bonner house, Alec found something to distract him from all thoughts of house or fire. The whining sound of some small creature in pain made him look down to see that a small gray-brown mongrel was cringing near the wall along the edge of the park, trying to keep from under the feet of those who passed him so heedlessly.

"Look, Melora, it's a little hurt dog!" Alec cried and knelt beside the forlorn animal.

"Be careful," Melora warned. "If he's in pain he may bite."

But Alec had a way with animals and the dog permitted himself to be examined, even licking Alec's hands.

"Melora, he's been near the fire," Alec said. "See how the fur on his back is all singed. And that's a bad burn on his hind leg. Come, fellow, I'll take care of you."

Melora made no objection. The dog's soft brown eyes looked lost and melancholy. He too was a refugee. Alec picked him up gently and the dog's wet pink tongue licked his ear.

As they started across the street, they were surprised to discover Quong Sam sound asleep behind the railing of the front balcony. His head and shoulders showed between the fretwork and a carpetbag with plump and bulging sides rested below him on the top step.

Alec rushed up the steps, the dog in his arms.

"Sam!" he cried, as though the circumstances under which they met were perfectly usual. "Wake up! I've found a dog with a sore leg. Can you fix him, Sam?"

Quong Sam unbent and stood up, a Cranby blanket about his shoulders, and his pigtail hanging outside. "I fix-um dog," he said calmly. "You gotchee key, Missy M'lory? We go inside."

Melora made herself ask the question, much as she feared the answer. "What's happened to our house, Sam?"

Quong Sam looked down at her, his round yellow face with its hundred pockmarks expressing the utmost in reproach. "You takee lady god—house burn. I come here."

Until this moment there had been a faint hope at the back of Melora's mind that somehow, somehow their house might have been spared. With Sam's words, the last hope crumbled.

"What about the tenants here?" she asked.

"All gone, Miss M'lory. All too much aflaid. We live this house now. More ploper house. You gotchee key?"

"I don't have a key," Melora said, "and I'm not sure —" but Sam gave her no chance to finish.

Without hesitation he stepped onto the rail of the balcony below the front bay window. The glass had broken in the quake and it took him only a moment to climb inside and nod at her solemnly through the window.

"Aw light, Missy M'lory. Now can go tell fam'ly come this house. You hully up bling 'um here."

She had to smile at his prompt solution, but she stood for a moment gazing at the three impressive stories of the house; in the rear where there was a hill they became four. This wasn't as grand a house as those on Nob Hill, but it had always seemed imposing to her eyes with its high tower looking toward the bay, its upper balconies and turrets, its windows set at odd angles. While her mother would never set foot in the house after it had been rented, she had sometimes brought her children here to walk slowly past on the other side of the street.

"Remember that your grandfather built this house, and that you were born here," she would say. "This is where we belong. If your grandfather hadn't lost all his money we might still be living here."

But even as a little girl, Melora had noted that her mother never said these things in front of Papa. Papa was great on living within one's income and he didn't feel that his salary as captain of a merchant vessel justified the occupation of a mansion. Of course Melora had come to the house now and then with Gran, but that was something they didn't mention to Mama.

Alec nudged her out of her revery. "You'd better do what Sam says. Maybe it would be fun to move into this house after all."

"We'll go find out," Melora said. "Suppose you give that dog to Sam and come back with me. You'll be needed to help move camp."

Sam had gone around to the front door and unlocked it with a great rattling of bolts. Now he beamed at them from the doorway.

"I take sma' fella," he said, reaching for the dog which Alec gave him. "You come back chop-chop and I fin' plenty chow." He started to turn away and then looked back at Melora.

"Las' night befo' fire come, Mista Kint come down for look-see fam'ly. For look-see you. I tellee you come here."

"Mista Kint" was Sam's name for Quentin Seymour.

"Then the Seymours' place is still all right?" Melora asked.

"Maybe-so for now," said Sam cautiously and waved them on their way again.

They hurried back to the camp in Lafayette Square and found the others waiting anxiously for their return. Melora gave her news, good and bad. Sam said the Cranby house had burned. However the tenants at the Bonner place had moved out for the moment at least, and he thought everyone should come down there.

Grandmother listened quietly, but Mama gave a little moan of despair. "We've lost everything we own! We've nothing to start life with again except the clothes on our backs. And the Bonner house will probably burn too!"

Cora soothed and murmured, and Mrs. Forrest, who had recovered somewhat from the knowledge of her own loss, snorted impatiently. But Gran regarded her daughter without emotion.

"This isn't the first time I've started life with nothing. There wasn't much left when the Yankees burned our place back home, either. But we did all right. And so will you. Now stop that sniffling. We've got to move down to the old house."

Mama opened her eyes and stared at Gran in amazement. It was many a year since she had been spoken to as a child and she seemed more startled than angry. After that she struggled to her feet and tried to help as the little camp gathered its possessions together. But she was plainly tired and the cough wracked her so that Melora led her to a place where the blankets had been piled.

"You stay here till we're ready to go," she whispered. "We can take care of everything."

Alec distracted his mother with an account of the dog he had adopted. He could keep the dog, couldn't he, he pleaded. His mother sniffed at her smelling salts and smiled faintly. No one could begrudge Alec the little dog at a time like this.

They hardly glanced in the direction of the billowing smoke clouds as they packed up food and blankets and the few extra clothes brought from the Cranby house. Now and then somebody checked just to make sure the fire's course hadn't flared suddenly in this direction.

Melora noticed Mrs. Forrest still in her feathered hat, standing on the grass in bare feet, her black lisle stockings hung over her arm and the shoes that were too tight for her swollen feet in her hand. She was reading a notice of some kind and Melora glanced at it.

"Proclamation from the Mayor," Mrs. Forrest said. "It seems that automobiles went through town yesterday giving these out."

The proclamation minced no words. Looters would be shot, it warned. No fires were to be lighted in stoves or chimneys inside any house. Citizens were to remain at home after nine o'clock at night and stay off the streets.

Mrs. Forrest passed the paper on to another group nearby and nodded at Melora. "Wise orders, I'm sure. Are we ready to go now? I haven't walked around shoeless in years, but I must say the grass feels good under my feet."

They started back shortly, straggling along with their various loads. Mama walked between Cora and Alec, leaning now and then on Alec's strong young shoulder. Melora followed carrying the Kwan Yin, the carved stand and whatever else she could manage.

At the Bonner house they found that Quong Sam had been busy in a practical way. He had gathered up fallen bricks from the chimney and built himself a little stove against the curb in the street. The water boiler in the cellar had supplied him with that precious commodity and a pan of water was heating for tea, while another pan held canned soup. The thought of hot food was enough to revive the spirits. They all dumped their possessions on the front lawn and sat down on the steps to eat.

The Hoopers had left most of their kitchen things behind and Sam was able to bring out bowls and cups and a teapot. All up and down the street those who had not fled were building little kitchens and the separate groups waved to one another cheerfully.

The vegetable soup was hot and strengthening and the sugared tea seemed a luxury. The dog lay at Alec's feet and watched him, only turning now and then to nose at the leg Quong Sam had bandaged.

"I'm going to call him Smokey," Alec said. "He's a sort of smoke color and he smells like smoke. And besides, he came out of the fire."

Sam had unearthed an old pair of carpet slippers for Mrs. Forrest and she sat with her feet hidden and tried to keep up her spirits with talk.

"Smokey doesn't look like much of a dog," she said to Alec. "But I expect that's the best kind to have. I don't think there'll be any reward offered for him, and if he decides to love you, he'll be loyal. No, thanks, Sam—no more soup."

Having finished. Gran would have braced herself to rise and go inside, but Quong Sam waved her down at once.

"You no through," he protested. "You stay here."

So they stayed where they were, while Sam vanished through the front door. Melora was watching from her place near the top of the steps when he came out on the porch again and she saw that he carried a large tray, borrowed from the tenants. But the half dozen gold and black lacquer finger bowls, each containing a scant inch of water, were plainly the treasured property of the Cranbys. Three years ago Papa had brought those bowls home from China.

Sam passed them around triumphantly—first to Gran, whom he was now accepting as head of the family. Then to Alec, as the only male present, and finally to the other four women. Mama sat up and stared bright-eyed at the lacquer bowls.

"This is very fine, Sam," Grandmother approved, "but where did you get the water? We mustn't waste any we can drink, you know."

"No dlinkee this," said Sam, bobbing his head at Gran in a quick little bow. "All over house plenty flowas. No good for flowas dlink water now. I pour off. You finish, you no thlow 'way."

When Melora received her bowl she found that Sam had added a tiny Chinese water flower, with its pale pink and green petals floating on the surface. Sam had always produced those flowers for special occasions. They looked like bits of straw until you dropped them in water, and then the leaves and petals unfolded into perfect blossoms. So, she thought, Sam's well-stuffed carpetbag had not contained his own possessions alone. What else had he brought away from the house when he had left? But it would do no good to ask. Sam loved mystery and he would divulge what he pleased in his own good time.

When they were through with their finger bowl baths —they all practically bathed in them—Sam carefully poured the water back into a flower vase to be preserved for further washing purposes. Goodness knows when they would have a full supply of water again.

"Now then," said Grandmother, taking charge again briskly, "suppose we move into the house and get settled. We need to be doing something and I think the best thing is to behave as if we planned to stay right here indefinitely."

Mama shivered and looked up at the place where bricks had fallen from the side chimney. "But what if there's another bad quake? Do you think we'll be safe inside?"

"The first quake didn't kill us and probably the next one won't either. But you can stay outside if you want to. I'm going in and look for a good bed and a nap. None of us did much sleeping last night."

Mrs. Forrest followed her up the steps, the carpet slippers slapping on her feet. "An excellent idea. And at least I don't think we need to worry about the fire. If we're in any danger the troopers will come through to let us know. There's still law and order in this town."