Soon after, almost on the heels of the first, came another
alarm with its attendant clangings, its cries of 'Fire!' its
chatterings and conjectures, its rushing of small boys in all
directions, its tread of hurrying policemen, its hasty flinging up of
windows and grouping of heads therein.
The girls were too busy labelling the children's gifts to listen
attentively to the confused clamour in the streets,--fires were
common enough in a city built of wood; but when, half an hour after
the first and second alarms, a third sounded, they concluded it must
be a conflagration, and Rhoda, dropping her nuts and cornucopias, ran
to the corner for news. She was back again almost immediately,
excited and breathless.
'Oh, Mary!' she exclaimed, her hand on her panting side, 'unless they
are mistaken, it is three separate fires: one, a livery-stable and
carriage-house out towards Lone Mountain; another fearful one on
Telegraph Hill--a whole block of houses, and they haven't had enough
help there because of the Lone Mountain fire; now there's a third
alarm, and they say it's at the corner of Sixth and Dutch streets.
If it is, we have a tenement house next door; isn't that clothing-
place on the corner? Yes, I know it is; make haste! Edith and Helen
will watch the Christmas things.
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