Time Well Spent as a Ghost

Chapter 2

The women stopped what they were doing to listen. At first they heard a gruff hollering sound, then impatient shouting mixed with some hesitant arguing, and finally a burst of panicked voices all screaming at once.

Then, the unmistakable sound of frightened animals.

"Grab the kettle and the buckets from under the porch" Ma was already out the door, lifting her skirts as she ran towards the barn, her elbows pumping side to side. Sylvia was the oldest so she told the other three to start filling the buckets from the kitchen pump while she ran towards the hen house. The hazy, light-gray smoke that drifted upward was being followed fast by billowing, dark clouds containing flashes of orange flame.

Throwing open the fence, Sylvia could see the wooden feed barrel and egg baskets already blazing. The fire must have started on the other side of the south wall of the coop because the only way out for the hens was through the front door she was unlatching. They quickly scattered in every direction. Looking through the wall she could see her husband pitching burning hay out into the yard and the others trying to beat down flames that had gripped the structure beams.

Sylvia joined her sisters, filling buckets from the pump in the center of the yard and then running to the barn as fast as they could. The men had used the trough water on the floor and they were fighting the flames that were steadily burning higher and higher, out of reach. The buckets being emptied on the flames caused the scorched wood to steam and sizzle, but the mid-summer air was dry and the fire was burning fast and hot.

Her father shouted to the others to start opening up the pens. Bruce was able to lead the three horses out in to the yard and Sylvia took the reins of the nearest one to help get them in the corral.

" You ok, Sylvie?"

"I'm fine." I said. "If it's hopeless, Pa's gonna want to move the cattle next. Go help him and the boys. Start with the heifers."

"Right"

Suddenly, Sylvia froze ... Benjamin! He had wanted to play in the hen house while Bruce was helping Pa reshape the plow furrows. The smithing fire was a safe distance from the barn but on such a dry day some sparks must've caught. Where did he get to? He wasn't underfoot when they were running back and forth to the house. She turned in time to see that the same thought had struck Bruce. To Sylvia's horror, he was looking upward toward the loft where the walls and bales of hay were caught up in a white hot blaze.