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Updated: May 13, 2025
You can hear the engines coming and the hook-and-ladder trucks clattering over the cobbles. Ambulances come, too, clanging their gongs, and one of them runs over a dog; and a wall falls, burying several victims in the ruin.
Until this minute I've felt as if I were a hundred thousand miles from Homeburg, with all train service suspended for the winter. If I could find the man who stepped on my heels while chasing that engine, I'd thank him and ask him what volunteer fire department he used to run with. See 'em scramble. Whoop! Here comes the hook-and-ladder truck! This is nothing but Homeburg on a big scale.
Then, round the near-by corner, came perilously steering the long "hook-and-ladder wagon"; it made the turn and went by, with its firemen imperturbable on the running boards. "Fire!" Florence cried joyfully. "Let's go!" And, pausing no instant, she made off up the street, shouting at the top of her voice: "Fire! Fire! Fire! Fire!" Herbert followed.
Some of the hook-and-ladder trucks are just one mass of golden-rod and hydrangeas, and some of them are all fixed with this red-white-and-blue paper rope, sort of chenille effect, or more like a feather boa. Everybody has on white cotton gloves, and those entitled to carry speaking trumpets have bouquets in the bells of them, salvias, and golden-rod, and nasturtiums, and marigolds, and all such.
Used to have, anyway, before they put the water-works in, and the board of health condemned the wells. Say! There was a put-up job if there ever was one. Why, sure! Sure he had stock in the water works. Doc. Muzzey? I guess, yes.... Pity they ever traded off the hand-engine. They got a light-running hook-and-ladder truck. Won two prizes at the tournament, just with that truck.
Long before this sad sound had died away, the deep bass of the City Hall bell, the shrill tenor of the Post Office bell, and the intermediate pitches of the bells all over the city, had taken up the chorus of alarm. There was a rattle of engines, hose carriages, and hook-and-ladder trucks through the streets.
It became more evident that something must be done. From the exigencies of the situation were developed the volunteer companies, which later became powerful political, as well as fire-fighting, organizations. There were many of these. In the old Volunteer Department there were fourteen engines, three hook-and-ladder companies, and a number of hose companies.
But once a proud moment he helped steer the hook-and-ladder truck to a false alarm in Macdougal Street and once a very proud moment, indeed he went into a tenement-house, near Dr. Thompson's church, in Grand Street, and carried two negro babies down-stairs in his arms.
Down the street from the heart of the city came a sudden clangor. Vehicles were rushed close to the curbs. Up a side street a new jangle of bells broke out. Never had Hiram seen a city fire, but at once he knew that such was happening. A hook-and-ladder company rattled past with clamor and gongs and clatter of hoofbeats. People poured from the doors of buildings to watch.
Bill's team, badly blown, is hitched to the hook-and-ladder truck, and willing hands push it out through the door. There is always more or less of a feud between the hook-and-ladder boys and the hose-cart boys, because the former get the second team and rarely arrive at the fire in time to hoist the beautiful blue ladders before the hose-cart gang puts the conflagration out.
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