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Show ' ' r " 1 ADVENTURERS' CLUB xll HEADLINES FROM THE LIVES 0 OF PEOPLE LIKE YOURSELF! "The Babe in the Blazing House" HEILO EVERYBODY: These adventures provide a cross-section of life, and if they didn't show its grimmer side occasionally, they wouldn't show a faithful picture. That's why I chose for this time a story I found unusually gripping because it demonstrates demon-strates so clearly how close we may be at any time to tragedy. Mary Ann Grob of New York City who tells this adventure, was only a child of nine when it happened, and this, for me, added particular poignancy to the tale. Imagine running back into a blazing house to rescue your eight-months'-old baby brother only to find the smoke so dense you couldn't see what you were doing. That's what happened to Mary. The time was the fall of 1921, around September, and at that time Mary's father and mother and Mary's three brothers lived in Thayer, a small mining town in the lower part of West Virginia. Thayer is a valley, situated between two large hills. To get out of the valley, Mary tells us, you had to ride on a sort of incline. It was a box-shaped affair, the car, let up and down the side of the hill by means of a cable. On this fateful morning Mary's mother and dad had to go to town, where mother was going to have her teeth fixed. Before she left she called Mary, who was the eldest child, aside and warned her to watch the three younger children, her brothers, while her parents were away. Mary had occasion later, as you will see, to recall that warning. Of the three John was the oldest brother, then came six-year-old Pete, and last of all little Eddie, who could show only a scant eight months. Mary had her hands tnll keeping them all out of mischief, and when night began to fall she began ta glance nervously out the window, wondering why mother and dad didn't come. The younger children grew frightened with the approach of darkness, and, at their urging, not to mention her own uneasiness, uneasi-ness, Mary finally bolted all the doors and windows. Children Were Locked Inside House. To set the scene for this story it is necessary to explain that next to the house they had a little wash-house, where Mary's dad used to wash when he came home from work. This wash-house wash-house had a little coal stove in it. On this particular afternoon the stove was lighted, but with the children locked inside the house there was no one to tend it or check the dampers. And so it came to pass that as the children sat huddled in the darkness, dark-ness, queer red shadows, ghostly and lengthening, began to dance on the walls of the children's room. Alarmed, the children began to whimper, whim-per, and at length, unable to stand the strain any longer, Mary went to "In the black pall she stumbled against something the crib she thought." the window and looked out to see what was causing the strange play of lights on the wall. Then she understood the wash-house was on firel Remember, this was no grown-up. This was a nine-year-old child with the care and responsibility of three younger brothers on her shoulders. shoul-ders. And now, as the fire spread to the main house, igniting the old, dry wood like tinder, the children fled from the blazing wall into the open air, Mary as scared as any. This will explain, perhaps, how it happened that on looking around, they discovered that eight-months-old Eddie was missing. Mary, who was frantic by this time, berated John for leaving the baby behind, as she had understood he had taken Eddie from his crib while she was looking after getting Fete out. But John protested that he had thought Mary was taking Eddie, and so hadn't bothered to go after him. Meanwhile, inside the burning house, little Eddie lay asleep in his crib. The thought of her beloved little brother in that blazing inferno was too much for Mary. With no sager heads to dissuade her, she rushed back inside the burning house, groped her way through dark, smoke-filled halls to the room where the baby lay asleep. Smoke Was So Thick She Could Hardly See. I By this time, Mary says, the smoke was getting so thick that she could hardly see. Reaching the bedroom she found herself in the center of a dense, rolling fog, choking her, blinding her so that she could not see her hand before her face. Heat seared her eyeballs, tore at her air-famished lungs. But the nine-year-old girl had made a promise a promise to a mother who trusted her to care for the younger ones. Mary l could hear her mother's last words echoing in her ears as she groped her way to where she thought the crib should be. "Look after them while I'm gone, Mary. I'm trusting you." The flames were searing hot now, but Mary had but one thought: She must get Eddie out In the black pall, she stumbled against something some-thing "the crib" she thought. Hurriedly she reached down, grabbed what she thought to be Eddie and almost delirious now with the desire to escape from those hungry flames she rushed out of the house into the open air. Outside, safe under the open sky again, she thought of the bundle in her arms. In the smoke-suffused house, Mary says herself, "I did not know for sure whether I had him or not." Now, obsessed by a horrible premonition of possible disaster she dared not put into words, she forced herself to look down. When you contemplate how easy it would be for a nearly hysterical child of Mary's age to mistake her precious burden in a fog of rolling smoke, you will understand how close is the line between happiness and tragedy. For had Mary's eyes met, not what they did see. but something else, this story would not have the happy ending it now has-Yes, has-Yes, it was Eddie, crying for all he was worth. And was Mary glad? You answer that one. I'll just go on to add that when Mary's mother and dad got home all that was left of the house was the standing chimney. (Released by Western Newspaper Union.) |
