Conrad Ferdinand Meyer - "Das Leiden eines Knaben"

Noah Davis - "A Narrative of The Life of Rev. Noah Davis, A Colored Man."

John Ruskin - "Val d'Arno"

Various - "Georgian Poetry 1911 12"

Annual Bibliography of Commonwealth Literature 2007
This paper argues that discourses of love in Ghanaian market literature for youth offer a view into complex negotiations of agency and empowerment. Drawing on Deborah Durham's notion of youth as "social `shifters'" and Francis Nyamnjoh's conception of the "interconnectedness" of agency, I take Ghanaian market literature as one specific case of how African literature for youth foregrounds questions of continuity and change as African societies enter into increasingly complex global relations. In this literature for youth, received notions of love, often constructed out of impressions from American pop and hip hop music, carry new notions of agency that compete with existing "domesticated" forms. Authors like Ike Tandoh and Evelyn Tay employ discourses of love to offer youth alternative avenues for empowerment in a context of socio-economic disenfranchizement. In a creative process of "straddling", this writing both reveals and reproduces the contradictions that obtain in youth configurations of agency.

The Gray Dawn

S >> Stewart Edward White >> The Gray Dawn




"How should you do it?" asked Keith.

"It ought to be laid right--so there's no bends or sharp angles in it; it
should never be laid over heaps of stones, or any kind of uneven surface--
it all increases the water resistance. If there are any bends or curves
they should be regular and even. The hose ought never to rest against a
sharp edge or angle. And when you coil it up you ought to reverse the sides
every time, so it will wear even and stretch even. Do they do it? Not
unless I stand over them with a club!"

He showed Keith the hose, made of India rubber, a comparatively new thing,
for heretofore hose had been made of riveted leather. Bert Taylor made him
feel the inside of this hose with his forefinger to test its superlative
smoothness.

"Mighty little resistance there!" he cried triumphantly.

The nozzles, all in racks, he handled with almost reverent care.

"These are the boys that cost the money," said Taylor. "If the inside isn't
polished like a mirror the water doesn't come smooth. And the least little
dent makes the stream ragged and broken. Nothing looks worse--and it isn't
as effective on the fire. It ought to be thrown like a solid rod of water.
I can't get the boys to realize that the slightest bruise, dent, or burr
throws the stream in a ragged feathery foam. The result of that is that a
lot of water is dissipated and lost."

Keith, who had taken hold of the nozzle rather negligently, returned it
with the reverent care due crown jewels.

"How long a stream will it throw?" he asked.

"With thirty men on a side she's done a hundred and twelve feet high, and
two hundred and eighteen for distance," said Bert with simple pride.

He picked up the nozzle again.

"See here. Here's an invention of my own. Cost money to put it in, too,
because every other nozzle on earth is made wrong."

He explained that other nozzles are made so that the thread of the hose
screwed into the nozzle; while in his, the thread of the nozzle screwed
into the hose.

"If there's a leak or a bad connection," explained Bert, "with the old
type, the water is blown back into the fireman's face, and he is blinded.
His whole efficiency depends on a close joint. But with my scheme the leak
is blown forward, away from the lineman. It's a perfectly sound scheme, but
I can't make them see it."

"Sounds reasonable," observed Keith, examining perfunctorily a device to
which later he was to owe his life.

Item by item they went over the details of equipment--the scaling ladders,
the jumping sheets, the branch pipes, the suction pipes, the flat roses,
standcocks, goose necks, the dogtails, dam boards, shovels, saws, poleaxes,
hooks, and ropes. From a consideration of them the two branched off to the
generalities of fire fighting. Keith learned that the combating of a fire,
the driving it into a corner, outflanking it, was a fine art.

"I say always, _get in close_," said Taylor. "A fire can be _put_ out as
well as just drowned out."

It struck Keith as interesting that in a room a stream should always be
directed at the top of a fire, so that the water running down helps
extinguish the flames below, whereas in attack at the bottom or centre
merely puts out the immediate blaze, leaving the rest to spread upward or
sideways. Taylor put himself on record against fighting fire from the
street.

"Don't want a whole lot of water and row," he maintained. "Get in close
quarters and make every drop count."

When Bert's enthusiasm palled, Keith always found men in the reading-room.
The engine house was a sort of clearing house for politics, business
schemes, personal affairs, or differences.

Once a day, also, as part of his job in his profession, Keith went to the
courthouse. There he sat in the enclosure reserved for lawyers and listened
to the proceedings, his legal mind alert and interested in the technical
battles. At no time in the world's history has sheer technicality
unleavened by common sense been carried further than in the early
California courts. Even in the most law-ridden times elsewhere a certain
check has been exercised by public opinion or the presence of business
interests. But here was as yet no public opinion; and business interests,
their energies fully taxed by the necessities of a new country, were
willing to pay heavily to be let alone. Consequently, lawyers were
permitted to play out their fascinating game to their hearts' content, and
totally without reference to expedience or to the justice of the case. The
battles were indeed intensely technical and shadowy. Points within points
were fought bitterly. Often for days the real case at issue was forgotten.

Only one of the more obvious instances of technical triumph need be cited.
One man killed another, on a public street, before many witnesses. The
indictment was, however, thrown out and he released because it stated only
that the victim was killed by a pistol, and failed to specify that his
death was due to the discharge of said pistol. The lawyer who evolved this
brilliant idea was greatly admired and warmly congratulated.

The wheels of the law ground very slowly. One of the simplest and most
effective expedients of defence was delay. A case could be postponed and
remanded, often until the witnesses were scattered or influenced. But there
were infinite numbers of legal expedients, all most interesting to a man of
Keith's profession. His sense of justice was naturally strong and warm, and
an appeal to it outside a courtroom or a law office always got an immediate
and commonsense response. But inside the law his mind automatically closed,
and a "case" could have only legal aspects. Which is true of the majority
of lawyers to-day.

On the adjournment of court Keith generally drifted over to the El Dorado
or the Empire, where he spent an hour or so loafing with some of his
numerous acquaintances. He was of the temperament that makes itself quickly
popular, the laughing, hearty sort, full of badinage, and genuinely liking
most men with whom he came in contact. There was always much joking in the
air, but back of it was a certain reserve, a certain wariness, for every
second man was a professed "fire-eater," given to feeling insulted on the
slightest grounds, and flying to the duel or the street fight instanter.

This hour was always most pleasant to Keith; nevertheless, he went home
about five o'clock in order to enjoy an hour or so of daylight about the
place. He performed prodigies of digging in the new garden: constructing
terraces, flower beds, walks, and the like. While the actual construction
work was under way he was greatly interested, but cared nothing for the
finished product or the mere growing of the flowers.

Gringo received his share of training, at first to his intense disgust.
Twice he refused obedience, and the matter being pressed, resorted to the
simple expedient of retiring from the scene. Keith dropped everything and
pursued. Gringo crawled under things, but was followed even to the dustiest
and cob-webbiest farthest corner under the porch; he tried swiftness and
dodging, but was trailed in all his doublings and twistings at top speed;
he tried running straight away over the sand hills, and at first left his
horrible master behind, but the horrible master possessed a horrible
persistence. Finally he shut his eyes and squatted, expecting instant
annihilation, but instead was haled back to the exact scene of his
disobedience, and the command repeated. Nan laughed until the tears came,
over the large, warm, red-faced man after the small, obstinate, scared pup,
but Keith refused to joke.

"If he finds he can't get away, no matter what happens, I'll never have to
do it again," he panted. "But if he wins out, even once, it'll be an awful
job."

Gringo tried twice. Then, his faith in his ability to escape completely
shattered, he gave up. After that he adored Keith and was always under his
feet.

Keith saw nothing of any of the women. Mrs. Sherwood seemed to have dropped
from their ken when they left the hotel. Once Keith inquired casually about
Mrs. Morrell.

"She's been over twice to see the place," replied Nan.

"We ought to go over there to call," proffered Keith vaguely; but there the
matter rested.




XIV


One night Keith was awakened by Nan's suddenly sitting up in bed. There
came to his struggling consciousness the persistent steady clangour of many
deep bells. Slowly recognition filtered into his mind--the fire bells!

He hastily pulled on some clothes and ran down the front stairs, stumbling
over Gringo, who uttered an outraged yelp. From the street he could see a
red glow in the sky. At top speed he ran down the street in the direction
of the Monumental. In the half darkness he could make out other figures
running. The deep tones of the bells continued to smite his ear, but now in
addition he heard the tinkling and clinking of innumerable smaller bells--
those on the machines. He dashed around a corner to encounter a double line
of men, running at full speed, hauling on a long rope attached to an
engine. Their mouths were open, and they were all yelling. The light engine
careened and swayed and bumped. Two men clung to the short steering tongue,
trying to guide it. They were thrown violently from side to side, dragged
here and there, tripping, hauling, falling across the tongue, but managing
to keep the machine from dashing off at a tangent. Above them, high and
precarious, swayed the short stout figure of Bert Taylor. He was in full
regalia--leather helmet, heavy leather belt, long-tailed coat, and in his
free hand the chased silver speaking trumpet with the red tassels that
usually hung on the wall. He was in his glory, dominating the horde. His
keen eye, roving everywhere, seeing everything, saw Keith.

"Catch hold!" he roared through the trumpet.

Keith made a flying grab at a vacant place on the line, caught it, was
almost jerked from his feet, recovered himself, and charged on, yelling
like the rest.

But now Bert Taylor began to shriek something excitedly. It became evident,
from glimpses caught down the side streets, but especially through the many
vacant lots, that another engine was paralleling their own course a block
away.

"Jump her, boys, jump her!" shrieked Bert Taylor. "For God's sake, don't
let those Eurekas beat you!"

He danced about on top of the waterbox of the engine, in imminent peril of
being jerked from his place, battering his silver trumpet insanely against
the brake rods, beseeching, threatening profanely. And profanity at that
time was a fine art. Men studied its alliteration, the gorgeousness of its
imagery, the blast of its fire. The art has been lost, existing still, in a
debased form, only among mule drivers, sailors, and the owners of certain
makes of automobiles. The men on the rope responded nobly. The roar of
their going over the plank road was like hollow thunder. A man dropped out.
Next day it was discovered he had broken his leg in a hole. At tremendous
speed they charged through the ring of spectators, and drew up, proud and
panting, victors by a hundred feet, to receive the plaudits of the
multitude. A handsome man on a handsome horse rode up.

"Monumentals on the fire! Eurekas on cistern number twenty!" he commanded
briefly.

This was Charles Duane, the unpaid fire chief; a likable, efficient man,
but too fond of the wrong sort of friends.

Now it became evident to Keith why Bert Taylor had urged them so strongly
in the race. The fire was too distant from the water supply to be carried
in one length of hose. Therefore, one engine was required to relay to
another, pumping the water from the cistern, through the hose, and into the
waterbox of the other engine. The other engine pumped it from its own
waterbox on to the fire. The latter, of course, was the position of honour.

The Eurekas fell back grumbling, and uttering open threats to wash their
rivals. By this they meant that they would pump water into the Monumentals
faster than the latter could pump it out, thus overflowing and eternally
disgracing them. They dropped their suction hose into the cistern, and one
of their number held the end of the main hose over a little trapdoor in the
Monumental's box. The crews sprang to the long brake handles on either
side, and at once the regular _thud, thud, thud_ of the pumps took up its
rhythm. The hose writhed and swelled; the light engines quivered. Bert
Taylor and the Eureka foreman, Carter by name, walked back and forth as on
their quarterdecks, exhorting their men. Relays, in uniform assumed on the
spot, stood ready at hand. Nobody in either crew knew or cared anything
whatsoever about the fire. As the race became closer, the foremen got more
excited, begging their crews to increase the stroke, beating their speaking
trumpets into shapeless battered relics. An astute observer would now have
understood one reason why the jewellery stores carried such a variety of
fancy speaking trumpets. They were for presentation by grateful owners
after the fire had been extinguished, and it was generally necessary to get
a new one for each fire.

Keith, acting under previous instructions, promptly seized a helmet and
poleaxe and made his way to the front. The fire had started in one of many
flimsy wooden buildings, and had rapidly spread to threaten a whole
district. Men from the hook and ladder companies were already at work on
some of the hopeless cases. A fireman or two mounted ladders to the eaves,
dragging with them a heavy hook on the end of a long pole. Cutting a small
hole with their axes, they hooked on this apparatus and descended. As many
firemen and volunteers as could get hold of the pole and the rope attached
to it, now began to pull.

"Yo, heave ho!" they cried.

The timbers cracked, broke, the whole side of the house came out with a
grand and satisfying crash. An inferno of flame was thereby laid open to
the streams from the hose lines. It was grand destructive fun for
everybody, especially for the boys of all ages, which included in spirit
about every male person present.

This sort of work was intended, of course, to confine or check the fire
within the area already affected, and could accomplish nothing toward
saving the structures already alight. The roar of the flames, the hissing
of firebrands sucked upward, the crash of timbers, the shrieks of the
foremen through their trumpets, the yells of applause or of sarcasm from
the crowd, and the _thud, thud, thud, thud_ of numerous brake bars made a
fine pandemonium. Everybody except the owners or tenants of the buildings
was delighted.

Keith, with two others, was instructed to carry the Monumental nozzle to
the roof of a house not afire. Proudly they proceeded to use their scaling
ladders. These were a series of short sections, each about six feet long,
the tops slightly narrower than the bottoms. By means of slots these could
be fitted together. First, Keith erected one of them against the wall of
the building, at an angle, and ascended it, carrying another section across
his shoulder. When he reached a certain rung, which was painted red, he
thrust his foot through the ladder and against the wall, pushed the ladder
away from the wall, and fitted the section he was carrying to the top of
the section on which he was standing. He then hauled up another section and
repeated. When the ladder had reached to the eaves, he and his companions
dragged the squirting, writhing hose up with them, chopped footholds in the
roof, and lay flat to look over the ridgepole as over a breastwork. All
this to the tune of admiring plaudits and with a pleasing glow of heroism.
There was a skylight, but either they overlooked or scorned that prosaic
expedient.

At the other end of the ridgepole Keith made out the dark forms of two men
from another company. His own companions, acting under orders, now
descended the ladder, leaving him alone.

The next building was a raging furnace, and on it Keith directed the heavy
stream from his nozzle. It was great fun. At first the water seemed to have
no effect whatever, but after a little it began to win. The flames were
beaten back, broken into detachments. Finally, Keith got to the point of
chasing down small individual outbreaks, driving them into their lairs,
drowning them as they crouched. He was wholly interested, and the boy in
him, with a shamefaced half apology to the man in him, pretended that he
was a soldier directing a battery against an enemy.

Along the ridgepole cautiously sidled the two men of the other company,
dragging their hose. Keith now recognized them. One was a vivid, debonair,
all-confident, magnetic individual named Talbot Ward, a merchant, promoter,
speculator, whom everybody liked and trusted; the other a fair Hercules of
a man, slow and powerful in everything, called Frank Munro.

"Look here," said Ward, "does it strike you this roof's getting hot?"

Recalled to himself, Keith immediately became aware of the fact.

"The house is afire beneath us," said Ward; "we've got to get out."

"What's the matter with your ladder?" asked Keith.

"They took it away."

"We'll use mine."

They let themselves cautiously down the footholds that had been chopped in
the roof, and looked over. A blast of smoke and flame met them in the face.

"Good Lord, she's all afire!" cried Keith, aghast.

The flames were licking around the scaling ladder, which was already
blazing. Keith directed the stream from his hose straight down, but with no
other result than to break the charred ladder.

They crawled back to the ridgepole, and worked their hose lines around to
the end of the building, out of the flames. Here a two-story drop
confronted them.

"This thing is going to fall under us if we don't do something," muttered
Ward.

"Duane's forgotten us, and those crazy idiots at the engines are too busy
trying to keep from being washed," surmised Keith.

"Look here," said Munro suddenly; "I'll brace against a chimney and hang on
to the hose, and you can slide down it like a rope."

"How about you?" demanded Ward crisply.

"You can run for more ladders, once you're on the ground."

At this moment the water failed in Keith's hose. He stared at the nozzle,
then rapidly began to unscrew it.

"Cistern empty or hose burst," surmised Munro.

But Talbot Ward, cocking his ear toward a distant pandemonium of cheering,
guessed the true cause.

"Sucked," said he. By this he meant that the Monumental crew had succeeded
in emptying their water box in spite of the Eureka's best efforts.

"Get off your nozzle quick!" urged Keith.

Munro, without stopping to ask why, bent his great strength to the task;
and it was a task, for in his hose the pressure of the water was
tremendous. It spurted back all over him, and at the last the nozzle was
fairly blown away from him.

"Now couple my hose to yours quick, quick, before my hose fills!" cried
Keith.

"They won't go--" Munro began to object.

"Yes, they will, mine's a special thread," urged Keith, who had remembered
Bert Taylor's reversed nozzle.

All three bent their energies to catching the threads. It was a fearful
job, for the strength of the water had first to be overcome. Keith was
terribly excited. Time was precious, for not only might the roof give way
beneath them, but at any moment the water might come again in Keith's hose.
Then it would be physically impossible to make the coupling. All three men
concentrated their efforts on it, their feet gripping the irregularities of
the roof or slipping on the shingles. Frank Munro bent his enormous back to
the task, the veins standing out in his temples, his face turning purple
with the effort. Keith helped him as well as he was able. Talbot Ward,
coolly, deliberately, delicately, as though he had all the time in the
world, manipulated the coupling, feeling gingerly for the thread. The water
spurted, fanned, sprayed, escaping with violence, first at one point, then
at another, drenching and blinding them.

"There!" breathed Ward at last, and with a few twists, of his sinewy hands
brought the couplings into close connection. Munro relaxed, drawing two or
three deep breaths. Without the aid of his great strength the task could
not have been accomplished.

"Hook her over the chimney," gasped Keith.

With some difficulty they lifted the loop of the throbbing hose over the
chimney.

"Down we go!" cried Keith, and slid hand over hand down the way thus made
for them. The others immediately followed, and all three stood looking
back. It was a wonder the building had stood so long, for in both stories
it was afire, and the walls had apparently burned quite through. Indeed, a
moment later the whole structure collapsed. A fountain of sparks and brands
sprang upward in the mighty suction.

"There goes our good hose!" said Keith.

The remark brought them to wrath and a desire for vengeance.

"I'm going to lick somebody!" cried Keith, starting determinedly in the
direction of the engine.

"We'll help," growled Munro.

But when they came in sight of the engine their anger evaporated, and they
clung to each other, weak with mirth.

For the Monumental was "washed," and washed aplenty. This was natural, for
now the water was pouring into her box from _both_ directions, and would
continue so to pour until the hose coupled to Ward's engine had burned
through. The water was fairly spouting up from the box, not merely
overflowing. Her crew were still working, but raggedly and dispiritedly.
Bert Taylor, his trumpet battered beyond all recognition, was fairly
voiceless with rage. An interested and ribaldry facetious crowd spared not
its sarcasm.

"My crowd must be in the same fix!" gurgled Ward; "the back pressure has
'washed' them, too." Then the full splendour of the situation burst on him,
and he fell again on Munro for support.

"Don't you see," he gasped. "They'll never know! The hose will burn
through. Unless we tell, they'll never know! We've got even, all right."

At this moment Duane rode up, foaming at the mouth, and desiring to know
what the assorted adjectives they were doing there. The crews awoke to
their isolation and general uselessness. Bert Taylor, still simmering,
descended from his perch. They followed the hose lines to glowing coals!

"Here, this won't do," said Talbot; so they reported themselves before the
news of a tragedy had had time to spread.

The fire was now practically under control. It had swept a city block
pretty clean, but had been confined to that area. An hour later they
dragged their engine rather dispiritedly back to the house. Ordinarily they
would have been in high spirits. Fires were to these men a good deal of a
lark. The crews were very effective and well drilled, and the saving of
property was as well done as possible, but that was all secondary to the
game of it. But to-night they had been "washed," they had lost the game,
and the fact that they had put out the fire cut very little figure. There
was much bickering. It seemed that Bert Taylor, in his enthusiasm, had, out
of his own pocket, hired extra men who appeared at the critical moment to
relieve the tired men at the brakes; and it was under their fresh impetus
that the Monumental had so triumphantly "sucked." Now Bert Taylor was
freely blamed. The regular men stoutly maintained that if they had been
left alone this would never have happened.

"These whiskey bummers never can last!" they said. Everybody trooped
upstairs to the main rooms, where refreshments were served. After some
consideration Keith decided to tell his story in explanation of how it was
that the Monumentals were washed. Instantly the company cheered up, A
clamour broke out. This was great! With Talbot Ward and Munro to
corroborate, no one could doubt the story. Taylor ran about jubilantly,
returning every few moments to pat Keith on the shoulder.

"Fine! fine!" he cried. "We've got those _Eurekas_! I can't wait for
morning!"




XV


Keith got home about daylight to find Nan, terribly anxious, waiting up for
him. He brushed away her anxiety with the usual masculine impatience at
being made a fuss over, gave a brief account of the fire--omitting mention
of his narrow escape--and insisted that she go to bed. After a few moments
she obeyed, and immediately fell asleep. Keith bathed himself and changed,
made a cup of coffee, and wandered about rather impatiently waiting for
time to go downtown. Wing Sam appeared, the morning paper came. The sun
gained strength, and finally tempted him outside.

For some time he prowled around, examining Nan's efforts at gardening.
There was not much to show as yet, but Keith had already the eye of faith
so essential to the Californian, and saw plainly trees, shrubs, and flowers
where now only spears of green were visible. The Morrells' garden next door
was already well grown, and he cast on it an appraising eye. No sign of
life showed about the place except a thread of smoke from the kitchen
chimney. It was still early.

Nevertheless, five minutes later Mrs. Morrell opened the side door and
stepped forth. She had on a wide leghorn hat, and carried a basket and
scissors as though to gather flowers. Immediately she caught sight of Keith
and waved him a gay greeting. He vaulted the fence and joined her.

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