''
BILL BROWN'S TEST
BY CLEVELAND MOFFETT
All firemen have courage, but it cannot be known
until the test how many have this particular kind,
--Bill Brown's kind.
What happened was this: Engine 29, pumping
and pounding her prettiest, stood at the northwest
corner of Greenwich and Warren streets,
so close to the blazing drug-house that Driver
Marks thought it wasn't safe there for the three
horses, and led them away. That was fortunate,
but it left Brown alone, right against the cheek
of the fire, watching his boiler, stoking in coal,
keeping his steam-gauge at 75. As the fire gained,
chunks of red-hot sandstone began to smash down
on the engine. Brown ran his pressure up to 80,
and watched the door anxiously where the boys
had gone in.
Then the explosion came, and a blue flame,
wide as a house, curled its tongues halfway across
the street, enwrapping engine and man, setting
fire to the elevated railway station overhead, or
such wreck of it as the shock had left.
Bill Brown stood by his engine, with a wall
of fire before him and a sheet of fire above him.
He heard quick footsteps on the pavements,
and voices, that grew fainter and fainter, crying,
``Run for your lives!'' He heard the hose-wagon
horses somewhere back in the smoke go plunging
away, mad with fright and their burns. He was
alone with the fire, and the skin was hanging in
shreds on his hands, face, and neck.
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