Down street and avenue fire-engines raced with clanging bells, leaving tracks of glowing coals in the snow-drifts, to the cottage in the chestnut lots. They got there just in time to see the roof crash into the barn, burying, as Joe and his crying wife and children thought, 'Liza and their last hope in the fiery wreck. The door had blown shut, and the harness Jim threw out was snowed under. No one dreamed that the mare was not there. The flames burst through the wreck and lit up the cottage and swaying chestnuts. Joe and his family stood in the shelter of it, looking sadly on. For the second time that Christmas night tears came into the honest truckman's eyes. He wiped them away with his cap. "Poor 'Liza!" he said. A hand was laid with gentle touch upon his arm. He looked up. It was his wife. Her face beamed with a great happiness. "Joe," she said, "you remember what you read: 'tidings of great joy.' Oh, Joe, Jim has come home!" She stepped aside, and there was Jim, sister Jennie hanging on his neck, and 'Liza alive and neighing her pleasure. The lad looked at his father and hung his head. "Jim saved her, father," said Jennie, patting the gray mare; "it was him fetched the engines." Joe took a step toward his son and held out his hand to him. "Jim," he said, "you're a better man nor yer father. From now on, you 'n' I run the truck on shares. But mind this, Jim: never leave mother no more." And in the clasp of the two hands all the past was forgotten and forgiven. Father and son had found each other again. "'Liza," said the truckman, with sudden vehemence, turning to the old mare and putting his arm around her neck, "'Liza! It was your doin's. I knew it was luck when I found them things. Merry Christmas!" And he kissed her smack on her hairy mouth, one, two, three times. HEROES WHO FIGHT FIRE Thirteen years have passed since,[2] but it is all to me as if it had happened yesterday--the clanging of the fire-bells, the hoarse shouts of the firemen, the wild rush and terror of the streets; then the great hush that fell upon the crowd; the sea of upturned faces, with the fire-glow upon it; and up there, against the background of black smoke that poured from roof and attic, the boy clinging to the narrow ledge, so far up that it seemed humanly impossible that help could ever come. [Footnote 2: Written in 1898.]