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Reddy had asked Heady, and Heady had asked Reddy, at the same instant. "It's that all-fired fire-bell!" both exclaimed, each answering the other's question and his own. "Jee-minetly! but this is a pretty time for that old thing to break out!" wailed Reddy. "It ought to be ashamed of itself," moaned Heady. "It's too bad," said Reddy; "but a fireman mustn't mind the wind or the weather."
The boys could neither study their lessons nor recite them with more than half a mind, for they had always one ear raised for the sound of the delightful fire-bell.
Stiff, thin, tall, sedate, powdered, superfine Hopkins, how different from the personage we saw but lately plunging like a maniac at the fire-bell! Could it have been thee, Hopkins? Is it possible that anything so spruce, dignified, almost stately, could have fallen so very low?
In other words, no state or territory could be surely safe from the intrusion of slavery. Lincoln had been practising law and had been out of politics for six years. It was this bill which called him back to politics, "like a fire-bell in the night." The repeal of the Missouri Compromise caused great excitement throughout the land.
The fire-bell was kept in the market-house where High Street and Bridge Street met: every one knew what it meant. Some dwelling, or maybe a boiling-house was on fire, and neighbourly assistance was summoned with all speed, in a town where no water was laid on, nor fire-engines kept in readiness.
The passengers were on deck enjoying the coolness of evening, though the shades of night quickly came down over the ocean. Suddenly there was a startling cry of "Fire, fire!" and a thin wreath of dark smoke was seen ascending up the fore-hatchway. "Strike the fire-bell!" cried the captain. "No rushing, my men! Steady! Mr Thudicumb will lead the way below. Be ready with the buckets.
Even the watchful press, that knows so much before it ever happens, slumbered quiet and deep, till the hissing wires shrieked the terrifying word Galveston. Then we learned that, as at Port Royal, the sea had overleaped its bounds and its victims by thousands were in its grasp. In all the land no one slept then. To us it was the clang of the fire-bell, and the drop of the harness.
One night it was on a Saturday, February 23rd, when there was a bitter black frost, with a north-east wind sweeping through the streets, and men and women were close shut in their houses all were startled in their household content and warmth by the sound of the fire-bell busily swinging, and pealing out for help.
At this juncture, the alarm reached the Ninth Ward Station-house, the fire-bell was rung, and a detachment of the police hurried to the scene. Here a new difficulty presented itself. The afternoon session of the school having commenced, the main outer-doors, which open upon the foot of the stairs, had been closed.
Ever so many people were running down the street with us, and the air seemed full of that brazen clang of the fire-bell; still we could not see any fire, nor even smell any smoke, until we got to the head of the lane where the Liscom house stands a few rods from the main street.
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