THE PRAIRIE FIRE.
The summer had been a particularly dry one, and since the beginning of
July not a drop of rain had fallen. The water-melons revelled in the
heat, and Olive revelled in the water-melons: for by a blessed
compensation of Nature the hotter and drier the land, the cooler and
juicier the water-melons seem to be. The water-melon of the western
prairie is as different from the pallid green-fleshed vegetable which
masquerades under its name in this country, as the full moon of the
heavens is superior to the lime-light article manufactured for use on
the stage. The real prairie water-melon is an enormous affair, being
about as large as the roll of rugs without which fussy gentlemen
consider it impossible to travel. The skin is of the darkest green and
as hard as a board, a most unripe-looking object at all times. Indeed
the only way one can find out the condition of a water-melon’s insides
is by surgical operation. You simply cut out a plug about an inch square
from the top side of the melon, and look to see if the flesh has turned
crimson at the centre. If it is still white or pale pink you know the
psychological moment, when the truly wise will eat the melon, has not
yet arrived. Accordingly you put back the plug, and leave the sun to
work a little longer on it, at a temperature of a hundred and twenty or
so. Since it never rains at the melon season of the year, the plug does
not do any harm if left on the top side, but the beginner sometimes
leaves it on the lower side, with the result that all the water runs
away. It is a curious fact, but the water of a melon, even of one picked
in the middle of a scorching hot day, never seems tepid. It is always
cool and refreshing, even at times when ordinary water tastes
unutterably mawkish owing to the excessive heat. The crimson spongy
flesh, specked with purple-black seeds, is eaten in moderation or in
immoderation according to the taste of the individual, but the water is
always greedily drunk up by everybody. The scorching winds of the plains
seem to dry one’s very marrow, and nothing can exceed the thirst of a
man who is obliged to be out all day in such weather and to work hard at
the same time. Animals, too, suffer from extreme thirst, and after a
morning’s ploughing when the farm horses are brought up to water, they
drink and drink and drink, swelling visibly under one’s eye, as if they
were india-rubber horses under the action of some new patent inflator.
They are never stinted in their drink and swallow bucketsful before
attacking their corn.
But to return to our water-melons.
Napoleon Pompey used to bring up a wheelbarrow full from the melon patch
each morning for the day’s consumption. He, like a true negro, was
inordinately fond of melons, or “millions” as he called them, and would
have sucked them all day long if left to his own devices. Whenever he
had to go anywhere in the waggon, as occasionally happened, he would lay
in a store of “millions,” and lay himself beside them, and suck them,
just as if he were a black caterpillar of unlimited capacity. The horses
meantime, far too oppressed with the heat to require much attention,
would plod along with their eyes shut, trying to keep out the glaring
light. There was nothing to stumble over or fall into, so the driving
became of the most elementary pattern, requiring only an occasional
rattle of the reins and a comment or two, such as: “Yo’, Reb, g’ ’long
will yer, g’ out o’ dat.”
Olive during this period found the heat stifling, and used to sit out of
doors on the shady side of the house, until the terrible wind blew up
from the Plains, when she would flee as before the breath of a volcano,
and shutting herself tight up in her room with closed doors and windows,
would gasp through the visitation as best she might. She was no worse
off than anyone else, and the nights were always cool and refreshing.
That was an unspeakable blessing. All this heat dried up the thick
prairie grass until it was like a vast plain of dry hay standing erect.
The corn crop at Perfection City had turned out exceptionally good.
There was ample for all the needs of the Community and a good surplus
which was to be sold at Mapleton in order to enable them to buy some
farm-machinery that was greatly needed. Consequently the whole Community
worked hard at getting in the corn so as to be early in the market. The
heavy ears of corn with their twenty rows of golden yellow grains were
stripped off the tall stalks by hand: a most limb-lacerating job, for
the “shucks,” or coverings to the ear, are masses of fibrous leaves with
sawlike edges. These edges have the power of cutting an exposed finger
in a most painful manner, and they are by no means loath to use the
power.
All this hurry and concentration of the workers upon the cornfield was
possible only if every other sort of work was neglected for the moment.
It seemed the wisest plan to hasten off with their harvest in spite of
the risk, and, unused as they were to prairie life, yet even they
realized that there was some risk in thus leaving their farms
unprotected. Ezra was perfectly aware of it, but like so many people he
shut his eyes and hoped for good luck. He spoke to Olive on the subject.
“If anyone so much as drops a lighted match on the prairie we shall be
lost,” he said.
“Why, what do you mean?” asked his wife in surprise. She was still so
new to the prairie that she did not understand to what he referred. They
happened to be on that outside landing of the stairs which looked out
over the wide boundless western prairie. This stairway from its position
made an exceptionally good place from which to take a survey of the
whole prospect.
“That grass is like tinder, and if anybody leaves a coal of fire burning
at his camping-place or drops his pipe, the thing will catch in a
second, and if there is a strong west wind we shall see about as bad a
prairie fire as we care to.”
“Oh, but that’s dreadful! What shall we do?” said Olive, much alarmed.
“As soon as our corn is sold at Mapleton, we shall plough all round
Perfection City and back-fire, if we can only get a calm day. We must
not back-fire in a high wind, because that would probably start a
prairie fire and just cause the very mischief we want to guard against.
It would take fifty people to keep a line of fire under control for a
mile’s length with grass like that and a strong wind.” So spoke Ezra,
critically scanning the horizon for any sign of smoke which might
betoken danger. He was very uneasy, and the fierce west wind, which
seemed never weary of blowing, made him all the more anxious, as it
might prevent them guarding themselves by running the usual belt of
burnt prairie all around Perfection City.
It was not a light job to get a safety belt of about four miles long,
for that was the circumference of the portion of their land fenced in,
and it was an impossible one in the face of a high wind with their small
force—unless indeed they did as selfish individualists did, namely let
the fire go and burn out whom it liked and what it liked once they were
themselves safe. The Pioneers refused to be guilty of this act of
treachery to the common weal of the inhabitants of the prairie. It is a
comparatively easy thing to keep one line of fire safe and so protect
your own fields; the real difficulty begins when you want to stop the
fire from spreading in other directions as well. Most of the settlers
back-fired their own land, and left Providence or the Devil to see to
the result as regards their neighbours. The Pioneers had naturally a
higher standard of public duty than this, therefore they did not
back-fire in the high wind.
The corn being stripped off the stalks, Olive’s fairy forest was sadly
mutilated, for the great ears were all gone and many of the streaming
leaves were torn away; the walk to the spring, therefore, was no longer
so delightful as it had been earlier in the summer. Still she and Diana
used to go there pretty often, especially since Napoleon Pompey was
always kept busy helping in the field. Coming up from the spring one
afternoon just before sun-down, she was amazed to see her husband
galloping madly along the far side of the field on Queen Katherine, the
big brown mare, her harness banging her hot flanks at every stride,
while Napoleon Pompey on Rebel was tearing after him waving his tattered
old straw hat. Olive for a moment or two stared in blank amazement at
them, and then began to run towards the house which appeared to be their
destination also. Ezra and Napoleon Pompey with frantic gestures seemed
to invite her attention to the setting sun, now sinking to rest like a
shimmering copper ball. She looked, but saw nothing except the molten
mass, unless it were a faint blue haze on the horizon, the result, as
she supposed, of the intense heat.
When Olive reached the house a few moments later, it was to see her
husband going hurriedly down the road to the bars on the other side of
the house. The horses were hitched to the plough and were trotting fast,
while Napoleon Pompey was urging them on with voice and whip. The
plough, unaccustomed to such speed, was jerking from side to side. A
moment’s halt at the bars, while Napoleon Pompey threw down the rails,
and Ezra turning round put both hands to his mouth and shouted “Fire” in
a long re-echoing whoop. He wheeled around then and seizing his
plough-handles set off at a hand-gallop, bounding along with his
ungainly implement.
Now Olive understood what that blue haze meant. It was a prairie fire
coming down on them from the west along with a fierce wind. Oh dear! oh
dear! What should she do? There must be something women could help at,
in such a moment, if she only knew what. But who to ask? Everybody was
far away, and the dreadful fire began to show up now that the sun was no
longer casting such bright rays.
“Come ’long, git yer shingle,” shouted a familiar voice behind her.
“Oh, Willette, is that you? What shall I do? It’s a fire, and I don’t
know what’s wanted.”
“Nothin’ but a shingle an’ a box o’ matches. Quick now! We’ll hev ter
pike, you bet. Pa and Ma is out firin’ a’ready down yonder, ’side our
house.”
“I am so glad you’ve come,” said Olive hurrying along with two wooden
shingles under her arm.
The shingles were merely the thin wooden “slates” with which the houses
were roofed. When thoroughly dried they are admirably adapted for
spreading a fire from house to house in a street, and accordingly they
are now prohibited by law in most towns and cities. On the prairie they
were used in emergencies as paddles to keep the back-firing within
limits.
“Yes, Ma said she ’lowed you wouldn’t know the fust thing ter do,”
remarked Willette complacently. “An’ Pa said he reckoned school larnin’
in the East could make folks more like nateral born fools than anything
under the sun.”
Olive was very little obliged to the Wright and Winkle spouses for their
opinion of her. She remained therefore silent.
They soon reached the furrows that were being so desperately ploughed by
Ezra and his foam-covered horses. The swift twilight was almost upon
them, but they could see Wright urging his horses along the south side
of the land nearest his house, while away across at the east side of
Perfection City Brother Dummy was thundering along with his waggon
bringing up his plough to the rescue, and that completed all the
horse-power of the Community. Little tongues of flame here and there
along the furrows denoted that the back-firing had begun in several
spots. Meanwhile the sky was reddening up with the reflection of the
on-coming conflagration, and the fierce wind blew ever harder directly
from its long blood-red line.
“Now you jes’ set afire ’long hyar, front this hyar furrow,” said
Willette, kneeling down with her matches and starting the fire as she
spoke. “Now then, yo’ jes’ see to that, an’ don’t yo’ let that ar fire
hop over behind yer, or it’ll be worse nor nothin’.”
“What am I to do?” asked Olive trembling with excitement and fear, it
was all so strange and alarming. “I never saw a fire and don’t know
anything about it,” she added.
“Jes’ paddle it out with yer shingle, ef it gits over. There ain’t no
sight o’ larnin’ wanted for that,” said Willette in scorn. “Mind yer
ends, and look after tongues in the middle. They’ll be powerful handy at
jumpin’ over this hyar furrow, and you mustn’t let the fire git away
from yer, else yo’ll be clear done for. Keep yer eyes behind yer and
min’ the back line,” said Willette walking away.
“Land o’ liberty! look at that!”
Willette made one bound behind Olive and commenced furiously beating the
ground with her wooden paddle, while Olive, bewildered, turned round to
see that she had indeed let the fire get behind her even as Willette was
uttering her warning.
“We ’uns would ha’ been clear burnt out in one grasshopper’s jump on’y I
was there,” said Willette looking critically to see if any little spark
of fire lingered in the tall grass which could by any chance start into
life again.
“Oh I can never manage it! What shall I do?”
“Be spry and—Look at that again now!” Willette sprang to a new place and
beat the ground. She was back again in an instant, here there and every
where, with the activity of a monkey, beating down for dear life,
whenever the fire crossed the narrow base-line of the up-turned sod, and
as the wind was high it was frequently doing this. Constant vigilance
was required, especially as Ezra had only had time to run a few furrows
with the plough, instead of a band five or six feet wide.
“Powerful heavy work in this hyar high wind,” said the child, “and on’y
that ar furrow to start from.”
Willette was in her element. Not an inch of the line escaped her
lynx-eye, and all the while she kept giving advice to Olive, who stood
in awe of her superior practical knowledge in this emergency.
“Now this hyar fire’s agoin’ to spread along, an’ yo’ jes’ got ter mind
this end by yerself.”
She darted twenty yards away and paddled out a flame and came back, her
face begrimed with smoke and dirt, so that she looked not unlike the
nigger whose modes of speech she so much affected.
“You jes’ take off that ar hat and them big skirts, else you’ll be burnt
to death right hyar,” said Willette surveying Olive with considerable
disapproval.
Willette’s hickory trousers and shirt were exactly the thing for a
prairie fire in a high wind, as indeed they were for most of the
occupations that fell to her lot. What with the constant bounding
backwards and forwards over the flame, Olive indeed thought that she had
better accept the advice and slip off her wide calico skirt which was
forever in the way and might easily catch fire. She put it along with
her hat just at the top of the slope where Weddell’s Gully began, where
she could easily get them next day, if all went well.
It was night now and would have been quite dark but for the bright glare
from the fire. All the inhabitants of the Community were out working
desperately. Olive paddled down her fire and kept her line bravely for a
couple of hours, in spite of choking smoke and clouds of dust and many a
burn. Willette was far away, lost in the darkness, following her end of
the fire, and only became visible as she leaped backwards and forwards
over her line of fire like some agile fiend engaged in roasting its
victims. Olive was all alone. She felt very much frightened, for she did
not know what might happen, nor what in any new emergency she would have
to do. She wished somebody would come, for it was a strange experience
to be in the black night and lurid glare all alone minding a fire. The
air was full of the burnt fluff from the big fire, and the roar as it
now had come near was terrifying. True the worst of it was passing to
the south, and their land was now pretty well guarded on all sides.
Suddenly the cheerful black face of Napoleon Pompey appeared in the
light of the flame.
“Oh, Pompey, I’m so glad you’ve come. Where is everybody?” said Olive,
overjoyed to see a human being once more.
“Wal, Mis’ Ollie, I on’y jes’ take ole plough to de bars. We’uns rip up
dat furrow golly spry. Done turn de hosses loose.”
“Why, the poor horses will be burnt!” exclaimed Olive in dismay.
“Dem hosses, dey dre’ful cute critters. Dey go off slap to de bottom
lan’. You bet hosses knows mos’ as well nor white folks ’bout prairie
fires. I come min’ yo’ fire fo’ yer, Mis’ Ollie. Ole man he done tole
me.”
“Very well, you can take my shingle then. There is not much more, I
suppose, to be done now, only you must keep both edges between the two
furrows here. They told me not to let it get away and run down into the
Gully. Do you understand?”
“You bet,” replied Napoleon Pompey who knew far better than Olive could
tell him just what should be done.
“I am going to get my hat and skirt. I left them near the corner of
Weddell’s Gully. I think I will just run across the old field and get
them: it will be much shorter than going all the way round by the
furrows. It will be light enough to see yet awhile so I can follow the
path through the Gully.”
Olive looked at the fire that was fast roaring its way towards the
south-east, and deciding it would easily light her on her way she
tripped off and disappeared in the gloom down towards the Gully.
In a few minutes Napoleon Pompey began to show signs of immense
excitement.
“Golly Ned! I never seed yonder. Mis’ Ollie whar yo’ be? Come back! Come
back, Mis’ Ollie! Golly! Golly!”
He ran violently backwards and forwards along his line of fire, which,
however, he dared not leave, exclaiming “Golly!” and “Oh Lordy!” at
every step. In a minute or two he ran into Ezra who was coming along to
fetch Olive home, if she was still there.
“Lordy! dat yo’, Mas’r Ezra. Yo’ go right ’long down dish hyar Gully.
Mis’ Ollie she down dar.”
Ezra was dead beat. He could scarcely drag his limbs along. The terrific
exertion of that furious ploughing, coming at the end of a long and hard
day’s work, had almost over-taxed even his iron frame.
“I thought I would find her here on my way home,” he said languidly. “We
are pretty safe now. Tell her to come back with the others. I’m going
home to get something to eat.”
“No, sir-ee,” said Napoleon Pompey vehemently. “You’ hain’t gwine ter do
dat. Golly Ned! Yo’ dunno see. Mis’ Ollie she done gone down inter de
Gully, fetch ole hat. Dat fire. Yo’ see dat fire startin’ up yonder, she
never seed dat, I didn’t see it nudder nohow: dat fire’ll crope up an’
cotch her.”
“My God! where is she?” cried Ezra, roused to sudden energy as it dawned
upon him what Napoleon Pompey was explaining.
“Down de Gully dar, she say she gwine down dar.”
“Amongst those tall weeds and that fire coming on! Oh my God!”
His fatigue was all gone now. He leaped forward and sprang with
desperate bounds down the straggling path towards Weddell’s Gully,
where, in a deserted field once tilled by that individual, prairie weeds
were growing to the height of six feet and more, they had dry stalks and
fluffy downy heads that would burn like petroleum, if the fire once
touch them. It was down there that Olive had gone, all ignorant of that
tiny red line creeping slowly around the brow of the hill, up against
the wind, and now approaching that very spot with vicious little tongues
of red flame. No wonder Ezra bounded along the pathway, no wonder his
heart beat ready to burst, and no wonder if his voice sounded harsh and
choking as he cried “Olive! Olive! Olive!” again and again until his
brain reeled. He got no answer except the crackle of the fire. He
stumbled along not knowing which way to turn, and twice fell forward as
his foot caught in the tangled grass. He staggered to his feet and
raising his agonised face cried in a harsh whisper, “Oh God! my wife, my
wife!” He tried to shout again, but his dry throat made no articulate
sound. His temples seemed bursting, he dashed forward blindly, not
knowing where to look for Olive in the horrid darkness, soon to be
turned into still more horrid light. His foot struck against an old rail
at the edge of Weddell’s deserted field, he fell heavily, hitting his
head against the projecting end of the rail, rolled over and lay still.
The little flames crept nearer and nearer lapping out their malicious
red tongues as if in anticipation.