by Kate Klimo
Moments later, he came dashing out leading a string of horses, white-eyed and shiny with sweat. They kicked up their heels and ran off toward the river. Oh, how badly I wanted to join them!
Don’t even think about it, said Khan, returning to my side. Some of us have a job to do.
The chief watched the runaway horses. “God bless whoever let those poor devils free,” he said.
The Little Lion just stood there, tongue lolling and fur steaming.
Sully came back to the cart and leaned on the hose reel. “The fire is winning, sir,” he said to the commissioner.
“It’s jumped the river, all right, and it’s headed for the business district. Do the best you can here,” said the chief.
Together, they grabbed the hose and started unwinding it from the reel.
I’ve got an idea! Khan said to me. The hose cart horses on the South Side do this trick. Follow me, Cinders. Run!
I was all too willing to run. I ran with Khan down the street. At first, Sully shouted at us to come back. Then he saw that the farther away we ran, the more of his hose came unwound from the reel. All he and the chief had to do was hold the pipe. We did the rest of the work for them.
Sully cupped his mouth and shouted, “A mighty fancy trick for a greenhorn!”
Give a dog a little credit, won’t you? Khan grumbled. But I could tell he was pleased that the trick had worked.
But it didn’t matter. All the hoses in the world couldn’t put out the flames in the match factory. As much water as Sully and the other boys poured on it, the fire spread to the stable and, from there, to the lumberyards beyond.
All those stacks of green wood gave off an oily, thick smoke that stung my eyes and nostrils. Sully’s eyes swelled nearly shut. His coat and whiskers were smoking. My legs were covered with burns. And Khan’s fur was singed down to the skin in patches.
Sully fought on. The wind blew him, heavy hose and all, out into the middle of the road, where the flames licked at his sleeves. Finally, he dropped the hosepipe and gave up.
The fire had now turned on the Long John. The boys had to pull the steam engine back before the flames swallowed her whole. But her hose was still attached to the fireplug, and the fire had spread to it. The firemen couldn’t get close enough to uncouple the hose.
Long John was trapped!
Her driver jumped into the driver’s seat and flicked the whip. The team lunged forward and snapped the hose from the plug.
The hose flew up in the air, flipping and flopping like a snake dancing on its tail. The pipe whipped around and knocked Sully off his feet.
The foreman leaped down and ran to him. He slapped Sully’s face. Sully sat up and shook his head. Soon he staggered to his feet, looking around for the next fire to fight.
It distressed me to no end to watch the men fight the fire on so many fronts and lose almost every time. For every fire they put out, ten new ones flared up to take its place. Up and down the river, everything, everywhere, was in flames. Khan and Sully and I kept the hose cart moving from one job to the next.
Explosions rocked the city. With each one, Sully would stop what he was doing and cock an ear.
“There goes the arsenal!” he said once with a sad shake of his head.
“That sounds like the gasworks!” he said another time.
Later, I heard a different sort of noise altogether. It was loud and hollow and deep and terrifying.
Sully said, “The courthouse just collapsed! I’d know the sound of that big bell anywhere!”
Buildings fell, trees burst into flame, and roofs blew off. The sky itself was lashed by tongues of fire. But when the most horrendous things happen enough times, even a horse eventually gives up and accepts them without flinching. That’s what happened to me during that long night and the following day. For the rest of my life, nothing ever spooked me again.
In the early hours of the morning, the boys were dumb with exhaustion and half blinded with smoke. Several times, Khan called on me to do the Hose Trick. We unspooled the hose and the boys hooked it up until, finally, the hose gave out and burst at the seams. But it didn’t seem to matter because, not long after that, the central pumping station burned down.
With that, the fireplugs all around the city dried up.
Now there was no water left to fight with.
Chicago was at the mercy of the fire.
Early in the evening on the second day of the fire, Sully and Khan and I came limping into the fire station with nothing on the hose cart but an empty reel.
The Thoroughbreds were already there, along with the rest of the boys. Without water to pump, there was nothing to do now but come back and rest while the fire burned itself out.
I had to hand it to the boys. Tired and hurting though they were, they took care of us first.
Except for the steady but distant roar of the wind and the fire, all was quiet. Nobody seemed to have much to say.
In the middle of brushing down Daisy, Michael stopped suddenly and looked around. “Hey! Anyone seen Sparky?”
“I just saw her upstairs a few minutes ago,” said Sully.
“That wasn’t Sparky,” said Joe. “That was Blaze. Blaze never went out. Sparky hasn’t come back.”
The men fell quiet again.
After a while, Sully, who was wrapping my legs in bandages, said, “Now that you mention it, I haven’t seen her since we headed out for St. Paul’s.”
“Oh, she went missing well before that, she did,” said Michael. He paused and then wiped the soot from his brow. “I guess maybe this time our girl didn’t make it.”
Boys and horses drooped.
“She was a fine fire dog, she was,” said Michael.
“There was no one like her,” said Joe.
“I’ll always remember that Fire Dance of hers,” said Michael. “Uncanny.”
“It’s a good thing I had the Little Lion with me,” said Sully. “For a volunteer fire dog, he did pretty well. He even taught Cinders to do a trick with the hose cart.”
All eyes turned to Khan. The chow chow was lying in the doorway with his hind end in the street, as if unsure whether to come or go.
“Come over here, chow dog,” Sully said.
He poured some water from a thermos into a bowl. “Drink up.”
Khan limped over and stuck his nose into the bowl. For a while, everyone watched him lap up the water.
“You remember how he used to chase after us whenever we turned out for a fire?” Michael asked. “He was a right pest, he was.”
“I think he just wanted to go to a fire,” said Sully.
“Well, I guess he finally got his wish,” said Jack.
“Maybe we should adopt him…now that Sparky’s gone,” said Sully. “The horses don’t seem to mind him now, do they?”
“After what these ladies have been through in the last twenty-four hours,” said Michael, “we could bring a real live fire-breathing dragon in here and they wouldn’t bat an eye.”
When they put us away, Khan came into my stall with me. I was so used to having him by my side, I would not have had it any other way. He curled up next to me on a bed of straw.
What’s a strange-looking dog like you doing in a city like this? I asked him.
Oh, so you need a bedtime story now, do you?
I am a little too keyed up to sleep, I confessed.
Me, I could sleep for a month, he said with a black-tongued yawn. But here’s your story: We chow dogs are one of the oldest breeds on earth. We hail from the far-off land of China. My mother sailed to America on a ship from China. Her master came here to build the great railroad. One night, he lost my mother in a game of cards to a butcher from Chicago. The butcher brought her here, and not long after that, she whelped me. Growing up across from a fire station, I dreamed of being a fire dog. Last night, my dream came true.
Too bad it was such a nightmare for Chicago, I said. I dropped my head into my hay and started to munch. After a while, I heard the Little Lion sn
oring. Soon I was asleep, too.
Sometime in the night, I woke up to a gust of cool air blowing through the fire station. Moments later, big, wet drops of rain began hitting the street outside.
Over the sound of falling rain, I thought I heard people cheering. Perhaps, I hoped, the rain had come to save us.
As I drifted off again, one last thought went through my head: Was this same rain falling on Sparky? And was she still alive to enjoy it?
—
The next morning, a wagon came rolling past the fire station and came to a halt. We were all out of our stalls, being bathed in the water that had filled up the rain barrel during the night.
A sooty young woman with singed hair and a ragged dress hopped down from the wagon. She ran and jumped into Michael’s arms.
“Is it really you? You’re alive!” he cried. “Your ma sent word that you’d gone missing! We’ve been out of our minds with worry, we have.”
It was my dear old friend Lizzy!
“I fell out of the wagon and got lost, but then Sparky and I found each other. We’ve been through so much together,” she said.
Then Michael looked at the wagon and said, “Chief?”
A black dog jumped down and ran to him.
“Is that my Sparky dog beneath all that soot?”
Sparky barked and danced.
For a moment, we all stiffened, afraid that the fire bell was about to go off. But this time, Sparky was just dancing for joy.
“And here we were fretting that the fire had claimed your spotted self,” said Michael.
“It wasn’t the fire,” said Lizzy. “It was a looter. He dognapped Sparky. I found her way over on the north side, where I had fled from the fire. We helped each other.”
Michael knelt down and rubbed Sparky until the soot began to come off and her spots showed through. “And to think that all this time you were looking after my Lizzy.”
“Sparky’s the best dog in the world,” Lizzy said.
“Well, of course she is,” said Michael. “She’s a hero. With a hero’s raging thirst, too, I bet.”
He set down a bowl of rainwater and she lapped it up. When she was finished, she came over to greet the rest of us.
You missed all the excitement, said Maisy.
We’d given you up for lost, said Daisy.
We were fixing to mourn you, said Maybelle.
I kept my head down in a big mound of hay. I was still peeved at her for going off and leaving me to the mercy of the fire.
How did Cinders fare? Sparky asked.
Not bad, said Daisy.
Very well, in fact, said Maisy.
For a greenhorn, said Maybelle.
I raised my head from the hay. Sparky came over and touched her nose to mine.
I’m proud of you, Cindy, she said.
I flushed out my nostrils, then nuzzled her back. Who was I to hold a grudge for leaving me in the lurch? I was glad she was alive.
They say the Great Fire is giving Chicago a fresh start, she said. And I guess the same is true for you.
And what about me?
That’s when Khan chose to come strutting out of my stall on his stiff little legs.
Sparky’s back went up.
Michael put a hand on her head. “Easy, Chief. That scruffy fuzz ball showed up to do your job when you went missing. He turned out to be a good little volunteer fire dog, he did.”
And just like that, Sparky’s fur smoothed out and her tongue lolled. She went over and sniffed Khan. You smell worse than a burning dump pile, she said.
You don’t exactly smell like a rose yourself, said Khan, sniffing her back.
—
I will say no more, except to add that some time later—thanks to that scruffy fuzz ball—Sparky whelped a litter of nine of the strangest-looking pups you’ve ever laid eyes on.
Firemen from every house in Chicago lined up for a chance to adopt those pups, who all grew up to be first-rate fire dogs, just like their folks.
As for me, I remained at the fire station for many years. The boys made me a pet of sorts. I was the only horse allowed to wander loose. I put my nose into everyone’s business. But I was happiest out on the sidewalk, dozing in the midday sun.
One day I was dozing when a woman’s voice woke me. “This is Cinders,” she said, “the mare your aunt Trudy and I had to leave behind when we weren’t much older than you are. She turned out to be a famous fire horse. A real hero.”
I opened my eyes to see a fine lady standing before me, holding the hand of a little girl. I offered my head for them to stroke and kiss.
“I told you she would remember me!” said the lady to the little girl. “We brought something for you, Cinders.” Then she draped me in a garland made of sweet prairie flowers, and I knew who this was: Abby, the Little One who, along with her sister, had brushed out my coat and kissed my nose so many years ago. And for a brief, sweet time before they went away, I became her doll baby once more.
Not long after that, I bade farewell to the boys of the Maxwell Street fire station. I went to live with Daisy and Maisy and Maybelle and Butch and so many others in the big paddock at Second Chance Farm.
If you ever come looking for me, that’s where you’ll find me, eating grass and swatting the flies with my tail.
Except for on Sundays, when Lizzy—all grown up now, with Little Ones of her own—rings the bell. That’s when our heads whip up. We rear and snort and shake our manes and take off together, galloping full tilt right up to the far end of the pasture.
There, we halt and line up along the fence, hooves planted, ears perked. For a few thrilling moments, we’re young horses again, ready and raring to risk our lives to serve the great city of Chicago.
The Big Burn
In 1871, Chicago was the fourth-largest city in America. Located on the western shores of Lake Michigan, it boasted a population of 334,000. The wealthier people lived in mansions in the city’s southeast district. Poorer folks lived scattered about in shacks and tenements in the west, north, and south. The business district, located in the center of the city, included office buildings, department stores, theaters, opera houses, and grand hotels. Along the two branches of the Chicago River, which ran through the city, there were wharves, lumberyards, workshops, warehouses, coal yards, and bridges. Wood, sourced from the great forests to the north, was the primary building material. Even buildings made of stone were covered with wooden decorations. Wooden sidewalks raised pedestrians above the mud. Of the 538 miles of streets, only 88 miles were paved, and 57 of them were paved with wooden blocks. All in all, Chicago was a highly flammable city.
In the late 1800s, most towns and cities in America still had volunteer fire departments. But Chicago had 25 fire departments manned with 185 paid, trained professional firefighters. These men had their work cut out for them. In 1868 alone, 515 fires were recorded in the city—an average of two alarms every day.
There was an elaborate firefighting system. A central watchman, located in the tower of the courthouse, kept an eye out for fires. In addition, each fire station had a watchman. When the courthouse watchman spotted a fire, he rang the bell and telegraphed the fire stations closest to the blaze. If someone on the street spotted flames, they went to the nearest firebox to alert the courthouse, which notified the proper fire station. The giant courthouse bell tolled a code that broadcasted the fire’s location. There were also special insurance patrols, men who patrolled the streets on foot, ready to put out small fires with extinguishers or turn on alarms for bigger blazes. So you might well ask, if Chicago was so well prepared, how did a small fire in a dairy barn result in a citywide disaster like the Great Fire?
The afternoon of Sunday, October 8, 1871, was unseasonably warm and dry. The summerlong drought had lasted into the fall. The trees drooped with dry leaves, and a steady wind from the southwest gusted and swirled. Just the day before, a sixteen-hour blaze had exhausted the city’s firefighters and taxed their equipment, including most of the sev
enteen steam engines—all the city had.
We will never know for sure what started the fire, but we do know where it started: in Mrs. O’Leary’s dairy barn, on the corner of DeKoven and Jefferson Streets. Legend has it that one of her cows kicked over a kerosene lantern. There was even a famous song written about it:
One dark night, when people were in bed,
Mrs. O’Leary lit a lantern in her shed,
The cow kicked it over, winked its eye, and said,
There’ll be a hot time in the old town tonight.
Later, an official investigation revealed that the cow was probably not to blame, nor was Mrs. O’Leary, who had gone to bed early that night. Perhaps the story of the guilty cow survives in popular myth and imagination because it was such a simple explanation. But the real cause of the fire remains murky. One theory has it that guests of the O’Learys’ tenants—who were having a party that night—went to the barn to get milk and accidentally kicked over the lantern. Another theory maintains that boys smoking and playing poker in the hayloft started it. Still another attributes the fire to a falling meteor! We do know that a friend of the O’Learys’, Daniel “Peg Leg” Sullivan, testified that he called on the family at nine o’clock and discovered that they had all gone to bed. Sullivan had sat down to rest his stump when he spotted smoke. “Pat! Kate!” he shouted. “Your barn is on fire.”
There was a firebox on the nearby corner, at Goll’s Drugstore. Mr. Goll later said he sent in two alarms. But watchers at the courthouse claimed never to have received them. Was the firebox not working properly, or was Mr. Goll lying? We’ll never know. But we do know that the courthouse watchers incorrectly pegged the location of the fire and repeatedly sounded the wrong alarms. Only two fire companies whose lookouts had spotted flames—Engine Company 6 (Little Giant), located on Maxwell Street, and Engine Company 5 (U.P. Harris), located on West Jackson Street—arrived right away. All the others went on a wild-goose chase, giving the fire a head start.