>>109710829Quiet music rose to back the voice. "Sara Teasdale. As I recall, your favourite...
There will come soft rains and the smell of the ground,
And swallows circling with their shimmering sound;
And frogs in the pools singing at night,
And wild plum trees in tremulous white;
Robins will wear their feathery fire, Whistling their whims on a low fence-wire;
And not one will know of the war, not one
Will care at last when it is done.
Not one would mind, neither bird nor tree,
If mankind perished utterly;
And Spring herself, when she woke at dawn
Would scarcely know that we were gone."
The fire burned on the stone hearth and the cigar fell away into a mound of quiet ash on its tray. The
empty chairs faced each other between the silent walls, and the music played.
At ten o'clock the house began to die.
The wind blew. A falling tree bough crashed through the kitchen window. Cleaning solvent, bottled,
shattered over the stove. The room was ablaze in an instant!
"Fire!" screamed a voice. The house lights flashed, water pumps shot water from the ceilings. But
the solvent spread on the linoleum, licking, eating, under the kitchen door, while the voices took it
up in chorus: "Fire, fire, fire!"
The house tried to save itself. Doors sprang tightly shut, but the windows were broken by the heat
and the wind blew and sucked upon the fire.
The house gave ground as the fire in ten billion angry sparks moved with flaming ease from room to
room and then up the stairs. While scurrying water rats squeaked from the walls, pistolled their
water, and ran for more. And the wallsprays let down showers of mechanicalrain.
But too late. Somewhere, sighing, a pump shrugged to a stop. The quenching rain ceased. The
reserve water supply which had filled baths and washed dishes for many quiet days was gone.
