Page 171 - The model orator, or, Young folks' speaker : containing the choicest recitations and readings from the best authors for schools, public entertainments, social gatherings, Sunday schools, etc. : including recitals in prose and verse ...

“ It must be the Fire is near us,” She listens : a step on the stair.
Then the door is flung wide and beyond it she sees the red flames1 giare.

" Give me the child,” cries the fireman. "T h e re ’s not a moment to
spare/’
The flames like a glittering serpent arc writhing up the stair.
"N o , I will carry my baby," and then she points to tin? bed
Where the light from the hull .silines brightly over a. golden head.

One little head on the pillow,— one only,— the fireman sees.
With flossy curls stirring about it in the breath of the fiery breeze.
He lifts the child while the other is cuddled away from sight,
And springs down the stair where the flame-hounds snarl after tiieir
prey in its flight.

J)n, on, through the tire that leaps round him as a swimmer breads
the wave.
Scorched and blinded and bre&Lhless, to find escape or n grave!

On through the fiery whirlpool till at last he gains the street.
Thank G o d ! and lays down his burden safe at the mother's fee!;,

" Ons, only one ?'* she cries wildly, “ Y ou have left the other to die ! ”
Oh ! the terrible, terrible anguish that rings in the mother's cry,
“ I will save you, my child, or die with you ! fJ ant], maddened by love's
despair,
She puts her babe from her bosom and springs toward the ilame-
wreathed stair.

11 You shall not go/' he tells her, and holds her bade from death,

" I left your child,— I will save it,— if I can.1' Then, catching his breath
For the terrible task before him, he leaps :ip the lurid way.
“ God help him,” the avrcd crowd whispers. “ He goes to his death/1
they say.

Moments that seem like ages go by and he comes not back.
The flames leap higher and higher. The weak wails s^vay and crack.