CHAPTER XXVI

FIRE--AND NO INSURANCE

I went to bed early that night, and by 9:30 I was asleep.

I was dreaming about a new advertising scheme wherein I had copied the old town crier plan by having a man go about the town ringing a bell and then calling out, "Dawson Black's hardware store for goods of quality!"--only, instead of giving him an ordinary bell, I had given him a big electric bell operated by a battery, which he carried in his pocket and which he rang every so often; and then in my dream the bell had started to ring and he couldn't stop it. I tried to get away from the sound of that incessant ringing, and I started to run away, but the crier followed me and the sound of the bell kept growing louder and louder in my ear. Suddenly he overtook me and grabbed me by the shoulder and shook me. Then I heard Betty's voice saying, "Can't you hear the telephone bell ringing, Dawson?"

Sure enough, it was the telephone bell. I got sleepily out of bed and went over to the telephone. When I picked up the receiver, a voice asked:

"Is that you, Mr. Black? Well, come down at once; there's a fire in your store!" and with a click the receiver went into place.

My heart leaped up in my throat. I was fully awake in an instant. I gasped out to Betty that the store was afire, and hastily put on some clothes, wild thoughts scurrying through my mind. And the thought which pounded at me most was that I had no insurance! The stock had been covered when I took over the store, but about three weeks before I had received a letter from the insurance agents in Boston that the policies would expire in two weeks. I had intended to have the insurance renewed through Pelton--we used to be chums, and he was an insurance agent in town--and I had written the Boston agents so, and told them not to renew the policies when they expired. Something had come up that made me put off telephoning to Pelton, and I had let it go for a couple of days, and then I had forgotten it altogether!

I didn't waste a second but rushed frantically down the street to the store and there was a big blaze in the rear. The firemen had beaten down the front door and several of them were in the store, while two others, with the hose, were at the rear of the store. Dense clouds of smoke arose, and every now and then I saw a tongue of flame shoot out from one of the windows in the back of the store.

When I rushed into the back yard, the fire chief was there--dear, kindly, old Jerry O'Toole. He grabbed me by the arm, saying soothingly:

"It's all right, son; more smoke than fire."

In fifteen minutes the firemen were all through. The fire had burned through the back door, but hadn't time to get much headway inside the store.

That Friday we had unpacked four cases of electrical goods, and we had put the cases into the back yard, stuffing the excelsior into them. Some of it, however, had been strewn about the yard. I remembered I had told La.r.s.en on Sat.u.r.day that we ought to clean that up, but evidently in the rush of Sat.u.r.day he either hadn't time or had forgotten it. It was this excelsior which had started to burn first.

When the smoke had cleared away and I had got into the store I collapsed. All my strength left me, my knees gave way, and I sank into the chair in my little office.

"My G.o.d, what a narrow escape!" I cried.

Jerry O'Toole was with me. "You bet it was," he said. "If one of my boys hadn't a'bin pa.s.sin' and seed the flame back there, it would have got a good hold before we could a' got here."

"I wonder how it caught fire," I said.

"You can never tell. I was asking your neighbor if he'd seed any one around back, but he said no."

"My neighbor?"

"Sure, the feller that opened the new 5- and 10-cent store--Stigler."

"What! Stigler!!"

"Yes, he was here when I got here, a' watching the fire. You don't seem to like him any better'n he likes you!"

"Why?"

"Oh, when I asked him if he'd seed any one 'round, he said, 'No, but he deserves to have his place set afire if he goes a'leavin' excelsior all over the back yard.'"

"Oh!" And I thought to myself, "I wonder?"

Betty had arrived at the store about the time the fire was out. She, poor girl, was almost hysterical. O'Toole put us into his automobile after we had nailed things up and drove us home, but we didn't sleep much, you can be sure.

What a fool I had been not to have seen about that insurance before it expired!

We, all of us, La.r.s.en, and Jones--got down to the store at six o'clock the next morning. Wilkes, it seems, hadn't been awakened by the alarm, and very much astonished he was when he arrived later and learned of the fire. We went over things carefully, and fortunately found that the damage was not very great. The front door was broken; the back door had been burned, and the woodwork around it; and some panes of gla.s.s broken.

The four cases had been burned to a crisp, but, of course, that didn't amount to anything. Altogether, the damage did not amount to more than fifty dollars, and, of course, the building was covered by insurance and that loss didn't fall on me. There were a few odds and ends which had been blackened a little by smoke, and water had fallen on a few pans and made rust spots, but the damage wasn't much.

You can be sure that the first thing I did was to chase down to Joe Pelton's to get that insurance fixed up in double-quick order. When I got there I learned that he was out of town, but was expected back about three o'clock in the afternoon. I left word for him to come down and see me just the minute he got back.

About twelve o'clock I got a long-distance call from Mr. Field, the secretary of the Hardware a.s.sociation. How he heard about it I don't know.

"I hear you had a fire, Mr. Black," he said. "Much damage done?"

"No, fortunately not," I replied.

"What about your insurance?"

"I'm ashamed to say it,"--and I blushed when I told him,--"but my policy had just run out, and I had not renewed it."

"I'm glad the damage wasn't much, Mr. Black. But now you want to insure through your a.s.sociation,"--and then he gave me facts and figures showing how much cheaper and safer it was to insure through the a.s.sociation. I didn't bother much to understand, because I was so anxious to get it fixed up, and it wasn't certain anyway that Pelton would be back in the afternoon, so I told him to go ahead and fix it up in double-quick order.

He mentioned one thing that was new to me, and that was about the co-insurance clause. We were talking about how much insurance to have, and he told me to be sure and have at least eighty per cent. of the value of my stock, otherwise I was a co-insurer with the company, and in case of loss would receive only a certain percentage of the amount of damage.

I was glad to have that matter off my mind, and he promised to get busy on it before he went out to lunch. I changed my opinion a little about Mr. Field. He had struck me as being a man who always took things in an easy-going way, but the promptness with which he got after me when he spotted a new prospect for a policy, and the directness with which he explained the proposition, showed me that he had plenty of energy to use when necessary.

At four o'clock I got another surprise. This time it was a long-distance call from Mr. Peck, the credit manager of Bates & Hotchkin.

"Have you had a fire, Mr. Black?" was his first remark.

"Yes," I replied, "quite an exciting time."

"Are you covered by insurance?"

"No--"

"What!" he cried, and there was great anxiety in his tone.

"No, the policy expired a few days ago and somehow I neglected to--"

"Neglected to--neglected such an important thing as your insurance!" My!

but I felt small! "What's the amount of damage?"

"I should say fifty dollars would cover it, and that's on the building, not on the stock."

"Phew! I was told that you had been burned out." He must have felt relieved. "You had better get busy and place insurance at once! And your credit is stopped until you have fully protected yourself!"

I told him I had already arranged that with Mr. Field, and he said to have Mr. Field advise him as soon as the policy was written.