A large part, of course, must be sacrificed; but, perhaps, a quarter was saved.
All at once a terrified whisper spread from one to another: "Mrs.Morton's children! Where are they?
They must be in the third story." A poor woman, Mrs.Morton, had been allowed, with her two children, to enjoy, temporarily, two rooms in the third story.

She had gone to a farmer's two miles away to do some work, and her children, seven and nine years of age, had remained at home.

They seemed doomed to certain death.
But, even as the inquiry went from lip to lip, the children appeared.
They had clambered out of a third story window upon the sloping roof of the rear ell, and, pale and dismayed, stood in sight of the shocked and terrified crowd, shrieking for help! "A ladder! A ladder!" exclaimed half a dozen.
But there was no ladder at hand--none nearer than Mr.Parmenter's, five minutes' walk away.

While a messenger was getting it the fate of the children would be decided.
"Tell 'em to jump!" exclaimed Silas Carver.
"They'd break their necks, you fool!" returned his wife.
"Better do that than be burned up!" said the old man.
No one knew what to do--no one but Ben Barclay.
He seized a coil of rope, and with a speed which surprised even himself, climbed up a tall oak tree, whose branches overshadowed the roof of the ell part.

In less than a minute he found himself on a limb just over the children.