The Storyteller

New Zealand Tablet, 18 January 1912, Page 3

The Storyteller

IN ; REPARATION . . ' 1 (Continued from last week.) - Why, : she seized the two little girls nearest her and made her way out. Fortunately one boy was absent that day and three of the other children had already dashed down the smoking, swaying stairs. The building was a frail, wooden shell, and in a few minutes; it was in ashes. And—two of the children had been burned to death!’ • '. Oh, .Mrs. Baker!’ I exclaimed. I was thinking of Miss Stannard’s tragically sad face. V " The townspeople never forgave her,’ Mrs. Baker went on after a pause. ‘ They thought that she should have saved all the children entrusted to her care before she saved herself. I believe that when all was over she thought so herself it least it was common talk at the time that she was grieving herself to death, that she could not forgive herself for her % “ cowardice,” as she called it, and that she felt that the death of those children lay at her door. ‘ Mr. Baker and I left Little Creek about a month after the disaster, and the only thing I ever heard of Miss Stannard afterward was that immediately after the death of her father, she left the place forever. All this happened about thirteen years ago. She was but a young girl then.’ That night I lay awake for hours thinking of Miss Stannard and grieving for her. I thought that I was to get no sleep, but finally I did doze a little to be aroused by a wild; unearthly cry of fire and a loitd banging at my door. In less time than it takes to tell I struggled into some clothes and ran out into the corridor. One end of it was ablaze, but, with some twenty or . thirty others ..all in strange, ' fantastic ’ costumes, I made my -escape down a narrow stairway at the opposite end of the building. .As soon as we reached the open . air I hurried toward the burning wing, fearing that some whose rooms were there might have been unable to get out. The sight which greeted my eyes had a kind of weird .beauty in spite of its terrors. Fully half of the long wooden building was a sheet of flame and cast a lurid, uncertain light over the trees and v flowers, and the half-dressed shivering men, women, and children who were huddled together on the lawn, helplessly watching the ravages of an enemy far stronger than themselves. I met the proprietor wringing ‘his hands frantically. Oh, Mr. Siegrist, are any of the ■ guests. still in the building?’ I asked, and trembled with apprehension as I awaited his answer. ‘ Yes, the two youngest of the Blake children. Their mother is ill and was carried out first of all,, but before we could get back their rooms were ablaze. The little children will certainly be burned. God help us !’ Feeling suddenly faint and ill, I tried to move on, and reached the corner of the house- just in time to see Miss Stannard stagger out of ■ the smoke-en-veloped side entrance carrying two small children. * I ran forward and relieved her of her double burden. She followed me for a few feet and then sank to the ground unable to go further. V As soon as I could find their half-frantic old nurse I handed the little girls over to her and went back'to Miss Stannard. In the confusion no one else heeded her except a small bell boy whom I found leaning over her and kindly but awkwardly trying to do something for her. Him I sent post-haste for Father Burke and the doctor, and while I waited for them I knelt beside her and did what little I could to make her more comfortable. As far .’as I could judge she was < not suffering greatly I was not even certain that she was conscious. She lay perfectly still with closed eyes. Father Burke came before the doctor. He knelt on the ground beside her and called her by name. She opened her eyes at last and, recognising him, smiled ; ’ and a pathetic, ghastly; smile it was with her poor face burned into unsightly blisters -on one side and all blackened by the dense smoke she had ‘come through.

* I saved two children, Father!’ she whispered faintly. * Oh, lam so glad! God will accept their lives —in reparation ! ’ Before Father Burke had time to say anything the doctor arrived. While he examined her we stood by in breathless anxiety.

‘ls she in danger, doctor?’ Father Burke asked when' he was done, and I saw a small purple and white stole in his hand. _

‘Not in the least, not in the least!’ was the positive answer. ‘ Her burns are not serious; she is much exhausted and in a minute more would have been suffocated by the smoke. .As it was she inhaled more than was good - for her.- See how blackened her face and even her hands and wrists are!’ *. , .

■ And again Miss Stannard opened her eyes and tried to smile happily.— Extension. '