LARRY BARLOW’SAMBITION

OR

THE ADVENTURES OF A YOUNG FIREMAN

BY

ARTHUR M. WINFIELD

AUTHOR OF

“A YOUNG INVENTOR’S PLUCK,” “THE ROVER BOYS AT SCHOOL,” ETC.

ILLUSTRATED BY W. H. FRY

AKRON, OHIO THE SAALFIELD PUBLISHING COMPANY NEW YORK 1907 CHICAGO

Copyright, 1902,

BY

THE SAALFIELD PUBLISHING COMPANY

Made by

Robert Smith Printing Co.,

Lansing, Mich.

INTRODUCTION

My Dear Boys and Girls:

“Larry Barlow’s Ambition” relates the trials and adventures of a young country lad, who loves to run to fires, and whose ambition is to become a regular fireman in some large city, and to do something which will materially assist the usefulness of this all-important service.

Larry lives with his sister in a small village, and during his odd time conceives the idea of a patent extension ladder which, if successful, will be of great use in fighting fires in tall buildings. Full of pluck and determination he goes to New York, and because of his bravery at a fire manages to get into the regularly-paid fire department, after passing the necessary examinations.

From that time on our hero finds his occupation one full of peril and excitement. But he does his duty manfully, and works his way upward step by step. He befriends a girl whom he rescues at the burning of a hotel, and then does his share toward solving the mystery concerning the young lady’s heritage.

My main object in writing this tale was to give to the girls and boys some idea of fire departments as they exist in our large cities, especially in New York. We often see firemen at work, but as we watch their heroic and intelligent labors we give small thought to the manner in which they are schooled to do these things—for it is to a regular school of instructions that a New York fireman must go before he is allowed to “run with the machine,” as it is called.

Affectionately your friend, ARTHUR M. WINFIELD.

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

[Pg 9]

CHAPTER I. SOMETHING ABOUT LARRY.

“Now, if this ladder will only work, it ought to be worth a good deal to every large city fire department.”

The speaker was a tall, well-built young fellow of nineteen. He had curly brown hair, clear brown eyes and a face that was as handsome as it was full of power.

He stood at a working bench set up in a little garret chamber of a cottage. The walls were hung with pictures and drawings of various machines, the bench was littered with tools, and the floor was covered with shavings.

On the bench in front of the young worker rested the wooden model of a peculiarly constructed extension ladder, a ladder meant to be made out of steel.

[Pg 10]

The model was built to the scale of one inch to the foot, and when shut up was less than twenty inches in length. This meant that the ladder itself when shut up would be less than twenty feet long.

But when opened up, by means of an intricate piece of machinery which was part of the model, the ladder would extend into the air to a height of over two hundred feet, and when planted in the street according to directions, would be strong enough to support the weight of several men as well as four lines of hose pipes, the lines to be used at the full force of the fire engines operating them.

From the above the reader will understand that the extension ladder was meant to be used exclusively by fire departments.

Larry Barlow, the young inventor, had worked on this model during his spare time for over six months. He was, by trade, a machinist, employed as such in the Humber Printing Press Works at a small town up the Hudson River, which I shall call Ferryville.

Larry was an orphan and lived with his sister, Kate, who was a year older, and who kept house for him. The young machinist earned a salary of eighteen dollars per week and this enabled sister and [Pg 11] brother to live in a fairly comfortable, though not elegant style.

Larry was ambitious, and this was not to be wondered at. His father before him had been an inventor and equally ambitious, and had once perfected a novel elevator lift from which great things had been expected. With his invention Mr. Barlow had departed for New York, and from that city had written home that capitalists had offered him ten thousand dollars for his patent rights, but that he had refused to sell more than a half interest. Then, of a sudden, Mr. Barlow disappeared.

This was a great shock to Kate Barlow and likewise Larry, and much worried the young machinist, who was just out of school at the time. He went to the metropolis to look for his parent.

But Mr. Barlow could not be found, and although the police took up the case, the mystery was not solved, nor was the invention recovered.

The particulars of the device were not known to anybody outside of Mr. Barlow, so that so far as the invention went, it was lost to the Barlows from that time on.

[Pg 12]

“But some day I’ll hunt down the man or men who did up father,” said Larry to his sister. “And then—well, they had better beware that’s all!” And his eyes shone in a way that made Kate’s blood run cold. Yet she could not blame her brother for feeling so vindictive.

More than once Larry tried to rebuild the elevator lift as he remembered it, but some parts were not clear to his mind and at last he gave up the idea. Then he saw in a patent paper that there was a demand from fire departments in all large cities for apparatus to be used in fighting fires in tall office buildings, and he turned his attention to the extension ladder.

Larry had always taken an interest in fire matters, and he was a member of the Ferryville Volunteer Fire Department, being foreman of Hook and Ladder Company No. 1. But he longed for something more thrilling than this and once said, while at work in the shop, that he was going to try to get into the New York City department.

“They won’t take a country jay like you,” said one of the machine-shop hands, who heard Larry speak of [Pg 13] this. “They don’t take nobody but up-to-date city fellows.”

“I’m not such a country jay as you, Lank Possy,” retorted Larry.

“Huh! do you call me a country jay?” blustered Lank, who was a tall young man, weighing a hundred and thirty pounds, and the bully of the shop. “Take that back, Larry Barlow, or it will be the worse for you!”

And doubling up his fist he confronted Larry. But the young machinist was undaunted and never budged an inch.

“You won’t hit me, Lank,” he said, calmly.

“And why not?”

“Because if you do you’ll get the worst of it.”

“A fight! A fight!” cried several of the shop-hands, and a crowd quickly gathered around the pair.

Lank Possy let drive right and left intending to take our hero in the nose.

Larry dodged two of the blows, but the third caught him on the neck and sent him staggering up against a bench. At once the friends of the bully set up a shout of delight.

[Pg 14]

Somewhat dazed, Larry braced up and stood on the defensive until he got back his wind. Then, watching his chance, he made a feint at Possy’s stomach. Down went the bully’s hands, and then up shot Larry’s left, and the bully got a smashing blow on the chin which stretched him flat on the floor.

“Hurrah for Larry Barlow!” was the cry from our hero’s friends.

“Wonder how Lank Possy likes that?”

More than dazed, Lank staggered to his feet, reeling like a drunken man.

“Who—ho hit me with a club?” he stammered.

“Nobody hit you with a club. Larry let you have it with his fist.”

“Somebody hit me with a club,” went on the bully. “You imp, I’ll fix you!”

Lying close at hand was a short iron bar, and before anybody could stop him, Lank Possy had this. Raising it over his head he made a murderous rush for our hero.

Had the iron bar come down on Larry’s head our hero must have been killed on the spot. But others leaped in and caught hold of the bar.

“For shame, Lank! Fight fair!” was the cry.

[Pg 15]

“Lemme alone!” burst out the bully, furiously. “I know what I’m doing!”

“No, you don’t. Larry hit you with his fist. Put down the bar!”

A babble of voices arose, in the midst of which came the cry:

“Stop it! the foreman! Get to work here comes old Grinder!”

Away scampered the workmen in all directions, leaving Larry and Lank still confronting each other.

“What’s the meaning of this fighting?” demanded Amos Grinder, rushing up.

He was a little, dried up old man, the terror of all who worked under him, with one exception. That exception was Lank Possy, for Grinder owed Lank’s father some money, and consequently he did not dare treat the bully as harshly as he treated the other workmen.

“He struck me with a club—knocked me down!” answered the bully, before our hero could speak.

“It’s not true!” cried Larry. “He began the quarrel by calling me a country jay.”

“Stop!” ejaculated old Grinder. “I won’t have [Pg 16] such talk here. We have had trouble enough. Barlow, you can go to the office and get your time.”

“What, do you discharge me, Mr. Grinder?” gasped Larry, in amazement.

“I do.”

Although our hero did not know it, old Grinder had been hoping to discharge somebody that day. He had a nephew coming on from the West, and he wanted to put the young fellow at work under him. The shop was now full, and room had to be made for the new arrival.

“Mr. Grinder, you are the meanest man I know!” burst out Larry. “I’ll get out, but I shan’t forget how you have treated me.”

“Say another word and I’ll have you pitched out!” roared Amos Grinder, his face growing red.

“You won’t touch me,” answered Larry.

Walking to his bench, he took off his overalls, rolled his tools up in the garment and marched to the office. Here he received his time and was paid off, and then started for home to tell his sister Kate the disagreeable news.

[Pg 17]

CHAPTER II. THE EXTENSION LADDER.

“Discharged! Oh, Larry, what will we do now? We have only a little money saved up!”

Such were Kate’s words when he brought his story home.

“Don’t worry, Kate, I’ll land on my feet all right enough,” Larry answered cheerfully. He was never one to look on the dark side, of a thing.

“Do you think you can get another job in Ferryville?”

“Perhaps I can. I’m going to try over to the rolling mill, and at the Hardware Works.”

But before going Larry went up to the garret room to look over his invention and to speak the words with which our story opened.

Larry worked on his model for the rest of that day, and far into the night.

“If I could only sell this we’d be in clover, and I could tell fellows like old Grinder to go to Halifax!” [Pg 18] said Larry, when Kate came up to make him go to bed.

“That’s true, Larry,” she answered. “But come to bed now; you mustn’t worry all night over your inventions.”

“I can’t help it, Kate,” he laughed. “I love the work. They tell me Edison keeps at it sometimes for three and four days and nights at a stretch, and I don’t wonder at it.”

Yet, though he went to bed late, Larry was up bright and early on the day following, and after a hasty breakfast he started out to look for another situation.

His first visit was to the rolling mill, a long, low place lying close to the river. Here the noise was deafening, and our hero could hardly make, himself heard as he approached the superintendent in the yard for a job.

“Sorry Barlow,” said the superintendent, “but I haven’t any opening. If I had I would take you on willingly. I knew your father, and he was a fine man, and a splendid bench hand. Come around in a month or so and see me again—if you don’t strike anything in the meantime.”

[Pg 19]

“I’ll remember that sir, and I thank you.”

At that moment one of the general managers of the rolling mill came up to speak to the superintendent.

Larry walked away, but he had not gone over fifty paces when a boy came running after him.

“Mr. Willis wants you,” he said. Willis was the superintendent’s name and Larry at once went back.

“Mr. Hobart, our manager, wants a man to go to New York for him,” explained the superintendent. “There is a special order to fill, and it ought to be under the direction of a practical machinist. If you want the job you can have it. It will take two or three days’ time.”

“I’ll take it,” answered our hero, willingly. It might give him just the opening for which he was looking.

He walked into the office, and there received full directions as to what to do. The errand pleased him greatly, for the work would take him to one of the fire engine houses of the metropolis.

On the following morning he bade goodby to Kate, and set out for New York, along with a fellow workman. The goods to be delivered went by freight on one of the river boats.

[Pg 20]

Larry had not been to the metropolis for several years, and the sights pleased him greatly, but nothing was so interesting to him as the houses and apparatus of the fire department.

“You are interested, no doubt of that,” said one of the captains of a downtown company, as he showed the youth around.

“I would like to be a New York fireman,” answered Larry. “Some day I’m going to try to be, too,” he added.

“It’s a hard life, lad, and but little time to yourself.”

“I am a volunteer fireman up at Ferryville. I belong to the hook and ladder company.”

“Yes? Then you must know something about the work, although let me tell you that a fireman’s duties in this city are more perilous than anywhere else. We often have dangerous conflagrations to fight.”

“I’d be willing to go where anybody else went,” answered Larry, readily.

“You might not be so willing if you saw where our boys are called on to go—down in smoke-choked cellars, [Pg 21] and into buildings stored with dangerous chemicals and sometimes explosives?”

“Of course I wouldn’t want to lose my life, sir, but I wouldn’t hang behind the rest, I am sure of it!” smiled Larry, confidently.

He was just preparing to leave the engine house, when an alarm rang out. He had hardly time to step out of the way, when in leaped the horses from the stable. The harness hung over them, and in a twinkle the sets came down and were secured automatically. The fire under the boiler was already lit, and down the stairs and the sliding pole came the firemen, some donning their rubber boots and coats as they ran.

“Can I go?” asked Larry, eagerly.

“On foot—yes,” answered the captain. “No outsiders allowed on the machine. It’s against the department rules.” And then, almost before Larry knew it, the engine had left the house and was whirling down the street as fast as three heavy and powerful horses could carry it.

“All right, I can run if I’m put to it!” muttered the young machinist, and the way he sprinted over the sidewalk, through the streets and among the trucks [Pg 22] and cars caused many a person to gaze after him in wonder.

The fire was in a downtown office building, and if the truth must be told, Larry saw but little, for being only a private citizen, he was speedily hustled back by a policeman, and then he had to keep outside of the ropes which were stretched from point to point. But he watched as much as he could see with interest, and spent a good part of the time in inspecting the hook and ladder trucks and the extension ladder truck which reached the scene.

“If my invention don’t beat that, then I’ll split it up for fire-wood,” was what he told himself, as he looked the extension ladder over. “Mine will go higher than that, it can be worked in a smaller space, and I’ll bet it will bear twice, yes, three times as much weight and pressure.”

“What do you want here?” demanded one of the hook and ladder men, as he knocked against Larry. He had had but little sleep for forty-eight hours, and felt far from pleasant in consequence.

“I was only looking at the truck and the ladder, sir.”

“Well, clear out; we don’t want boys around.”

[Pg 23]

“Thank you—for nothing!” answered Larry.

“You needn’t get gay about it!” growled the fireman, savagely.

“And you needn’t get impudent,” returned Larry, and walked off.

Part of Larry’s errand called him uptown on the East side, and after remaining at the fire as long as he dared, he inquired his way to the entrance of the Brooklyn Bridge, and there took a Third Avenue Elevated train uptown.

The train was fairly well filled, and the youth had to take a seat directly behind one of the cross seats in the center of the car.

The cross seat was occupied by two men, who soon attracted his attention. One was nicely dressed, and at least fifty years of age; the other was younger, and much rougher in appearance.

“I think we can use that lift now,” one of the men was saying. “The inventor has been dead several years, you know.”

“That’s true,” was the answer of the man who was well dressed. “But we must go slow. He had a son, remember. The young man may be on the watch for us.”

[Pg 24]

“Bah! He was from a town away up the river. I don’t believe he’ll ever come to New York. I want some money, and if it’s in that elevator lift I want to get it out. Nothing ventured nothing gained.”

The two men arose and hurried to quit the train, which had just rolled into a station. Larry stared at them in amazement.

“They must be speaking of father’s invention,” he murmured to himself. “I must find out who they are.”

[Pg 25]

CHAPTER III. “SAVE MY MARY.”

There was a crowd on the station platform, and before Larry could get out of the train the two men were lost to sight. In vain he looked for them; they could not be found.

He went on his errand after that with a sober face. “I must find them some time,” he thought. “But it won’t do any good to worry Kate about this.”

The next day found him back to Ferryville, where he received seven dollars and his expenses for his work. The superintendent told him to come again if he did not find a steady place.

“Thank you, Mr. Willis, I will,” answered Larry, and hurried away. The superintendent’s kind manner had warmed his heart.

“What a difference between him and old Grinder,” he thought. “And it don’t cost anything to treat a fellow decently, either.”

[Pg 26]

From the rolling mill Larry proceeded to the Hardware Works, the largest manufacturing plant of which Ferryville Boasted.

Here he had to wait nearly half an hour before he could see the foreman to whom he was directed.

“Want a job, eh?” said the foreman, quickly. “Well, we want two more machinists. Where are you from?”

Larry told him.

“Why did you leave?” was the next question.

“I didn’t leave. I was discharged for fighting. But it was not my fault,” and Larry started to give the particulars.

The foreman, however, cut him short. “Can’t take you without a recommendation,” he said. “If you can get that, I’ll see what I can do for you, but not otherwise. Good-day,” and he turned away to go on with his work.

“Well, that settles that,” thought our hero, as he walked away. “I’ll never get a recommendation from the Printing Press Works, with old Grinder down on me. I guess I’m knocked out all around.”

A good deal discouraged, but still a little hopeful, Larry determined to cross the ferry and try some [Pg 27] of the machine shops on the other side of the river.

He was making his way to the little ferry house, when the ringing of a distant bell brought him to a sudden halt.

“The fire bell!” he murmured, and began to count the strokes. “One, two”—a pause—“one, two, three, four—box twenty-four! That’s down to the new Riverside Hotel!”

The bell was still ringing as he set off on a run for the hook and ladder house. He covered the ground quickly, and those who joined in had all they could do to keep up with him.

“Where is the fire?” he asked, as he helped half a dozen men and boys rush the long hook and ladder truck into the street.

“It’s the stables connected with the new hotel,” was the answer. “And the wind is blowing right for the hotel itself.”