Our Loss by Fire

It is true that no buildings on our side of the creek were burned; but Mr. Middleton and I had stored on the east side, while we were putting up the new shop, a full two thirds of all the stock we owned, and this went with the rest, within the second hour after the conflagration started.

I worked until my strength was exhausted, and my hair so singed that, standing at a distance from me, you would have said that my head was covered with a black cap, yet I question if all of the firm's property that I succeeded in carrying out from the burning buildings would have amounted in value to fifty dollars.

I had no time to sit down and weep over our losses, for every effort in my power was demanded in behalf of those whose possessions might yet be saved. Even as I worked, there kept ringing through my brain those words which I had often heard my mother read from the Scriptures, that "pride goeth before a fall."

Then I reflected that if Mr. Middleton and I had not been so complacent over our business prospects, we should not have believed it necessary to build a new and more imposing looking shop, in which case our goods need not have been stored on the east side. If we had not done all this, we should have come out from that terrible fire without personal loss.