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Updated: July 10, 2025
"Lakeville is certainly improving," remarked Mr. Appelby to a group of men in the post-office one day, as they were reading the notice about the parade and picnic. "That's what it is," added Mr. Charles Daven, the aged postmaster and a justice of the peace. "Why there's been more mail come to this here office in the last two weeks than in two months afore."
He was rather pale, for he was not used to speaking in public. "What is it, Herbert?" asked Mr. Appelby. "Don't you favor this?" "I most certainly do, and so do all the boys. All we want to know is, what will become of our department?" "Oh, we won't need you boys when we get the chemical engines," said Mr. Sagger quickly. "The members of the bucket brigade will attend to them.
"How do you account for that?" asked Mr. Appelby. "Why nearly every resident has written to some friend, tellin' of the new engines an' fire department, an' the pussons has writ back, askin' how we done it. I know, 'cause lots of 'em writ on postal cards, an' I read 'em.
The speaker was Mr. Perrett Bergman, owner of the lumber yard, and, as each boy stepped ashore, he shook him warmly by the hand. "Yes, Mr. Bergman, those boys certainly did themselves proud," said Mayor Appelby. "They're almost as good as a regular department." "That's what they are. Well, I'll have something to say about that later.
"The bay mare's a little lame, from jumpin', an' the roan gelding is scratched on the fore quarter. But, land! that's nothin'. They'll be all right in a day or two." "Pretty heavy loss, ain't it, neighbor Stimson?" asked Mr. Peter Appelby, who lived next to the man whose barn was now but a mass of glowing embers. "Yes, 'tis, but I got insurance. I'm glad it wasn't the house." "Guess you kin be.
Appelby and Mr. Sagger were talking about it, and Sagger and his crowd object to spending the money." "That's another point, Herbert. You'd have to have money to run a department." "Not much. You see we boys would serve without pay, and all we'd need would be an engine." "But engines, even the kind worked by hand-pumps, cost money." "I know it, but we might get a second-hand one cheap.
"If Constable Stickler had given the alarm a little earlier, so's the bucket brigade could have got there quicker, we could have saved the barn," said Moses Sagger, the owner of the only butcher shop in town. He was a member of the brigade. "That bucket brigade could never have put out that fire, Moses," said Peter Appelby. "There wasn't water enough." "Yes, there was.
Why, it will ruin the town!" "Well, if the taxpayers wanted a hired department they can have it," declared Mr. Appelby. "But it will cost money." "Well, it ought to come out of the town treasury," went on the butcher. "Taxes is high enough now. Maybe we could get an engine cheap, somewhere." "What's the matter with paying the boys for theirs ?" asked the mayor.
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