Pacific was safe on the pavement, but she had only a moment before
been flung from those flaming windows, and her terrified shrieks rent
the air. The crowd gave a long-drawn groan, and mothers turned their
eyes away and shivered. Nobody followed Marm Lisa up that flaming
path of death and duty: it was no use flinging a good life after a
worthless one.
'Fool! crazy fool!' people ejaculated, with tears of reverence in
their eyes.
'Darling, splendid fool!' cried Mary. 'Fool worth all the wise ones
among us!'
'He that loseth his life for My sake shall find it!' said a pious
Methodist cobbler with a patched boot under his arm.
In the eternity of waiting that was numbered really but in seconds, a
burly policeman beckoned four men and gave them a big old-fashioned
counterpane that some one had offered, telling them to stand ready
for whatever might happen.
'Come closer, boys,' said one of them, wetting his hat in a tub of
water; 'if we take a little scorchin' doin' this now, we may git it
cooler in the next world!'
'Amen! Trust the Lord!' said the cobbler; and just then Marm Lisa
appeared at one of the top windows with a child in her arms. No one
else could have recognised Atlantic in the smoke, but Rhoda and Mary
knew the round cropped head and the familiar blue gingham apron.
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