The girl felt some one feeling, as she supposed, for her pocket-book, and
she started to run, yelling, "pickpocket," and left the burning polonaise
in Mr. Field's hands. He blushed, and was about to explain to his lady
friends how the best of us are liable to have our motives misconstrued,
when somebody threw a box of four dozen of those large firecrackers right
at his feet, and they were all on fire. Ten of them exploded at once, and
he grabbed the polonaise in one hand and his burning coat tail in the
other, and started west on a run.
The steward of the Gideon's Band Club House, at Burlington, said he
arrived there at daylight on the morning of the 5th, and he still held the
pieces of dress, but the whole back of his coat was burned off, and the
suspenders just held by a thread. He said the comet struck the earth at
Racine, at 9:30 the night before, and knocked the town into the lake, and
he and another fellow were all that escaped.
The narrowest escape was that of young Mr. Oberman. He is a small man, all
except his heart and feet, and when the air began to fill with patriotic
missiles, he started to run. On passing the _News_ office he had to jump
over an old coal stove that stood there, and while he was in the air, six
feet from the sidewalk, a sky rocket stick passed through his coat tail
and pinned him to the building, where he hung suspended, while other
rocket sticks were striking all around him, Roman candle colored balls
were falling on his unprotected head, etc.
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