Democratic Sentinel, Volume 16, Number 8, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 March 1892 — Well Thrown. [ARTICLE]

Well Thrown.

On a day in January, thirty-two years ago, the people of Madison Village, Me., were fighting fire. The west wind blew a hurricane; the tavern and an adjoining dwellings house had already burned to the ground, and the entire village was threatened. The Congregational Church stood In direct line with the Are, but the wide village green might save it. Hundreds of anxious eyes were on the watch lest some spark or live cinder should fall upon its exposed roof and walls, which were kept drenched with water. A blazing cinder whirled high across the green, and a strong, sucking current of air carried it and held it against a clapboard of the tall steeple; held It until the dry, pitch-filled strip of wood ignited, and a brisk smoke was rising on the steeple’s south face. A groan burst from the watching crowd. No ladder could reach the spot, and the loved church must burn. A red tongue of flame shot out from the blackened hole that the live cinder had charred, then—whiz went a flying snowball up from the crowd, a single, big, moist snowball, that snuffed out that blaze as one snuffs out a candle. Warren Bacon with his good right left hand had quickly shaped and thrown the snowball, and the church was saved. The building still stands, and the pierced clapboards on the south side of the steeple still show where the blazing cinder and then the flying snowball struck.