Page:The Country Boy.djvu/15

Rh The old oak, as everybody called it, was a stately giant, and the early settlers of Silverton looked a fitting people to group themselves under it and around it, and, as I have said, it was the superb character of both men and women that made Silverton, the old town, so distinctly different.

The tree and town were nearly all destroyed once by fire. A merchant named Alex Ross let a lighted candle brush against his beard and from his whiskers the blaze leaped madly into the lace curtains of his store window and one of the handsomest city blocks was soon burnt to the ground. The town then got a hook and ladder company, and a fire brigade was organized with a tower and a fire bell on top of it. Years passed and passed and the firemen grew older and less attentive at the annual fire drill. The fire department consisted of a hose, hook and ladder wagon with some fine axes with gilding on the blades, some long leather buckets, a long hose, and some fire helmets. Some ten years after the first fire another broke out, in the old brick store; possibly from a cigar stub as a man was seen smoking one that day in the store. At any rate the old