A FIRE IN THE FOREST.
The Effects of Prairie Fires--How Abram Garfield saved his Crops--The
sudden Illness and Death of Abram Garfield--The Grave to the corner of
the Wheatfield.
One of General Sherman's veteran soldiers was once describing a prairie
fire. When he had finished his story, he raised himself to his full
six feet height, and with flashing eyes said, "If I should ever catch a
man firing a prairie or a forest, as God helps me, I would shoot him
down in his deed."
No wonder that the old soldier was fired with indignation when he
thought of the terrible consequences which often resulted from such
thoughtless or wanton proceedings. The loss to settlers is often
appalling. The prairies, which in the day-time seem dry, dull, and
uninteresting, give place at night to the lurid play of the fire fiend,
and the heavens and horizon seem like a furnace. It is a grand, yet
awful sight. Cheeks blanch as the wind sweeps its volume towards the
observer, or across his track.
Full in the distance is seen the long line of bright flame stretching
for miles, with its broad band of dark smoke-clouds above. Often it
rages unchecked for miles and miles, where the cabins of the settlers
have just been set up. No words can describe, no pencil paint, the
look of terror when the settler beholds advancing towards him the
devouring element. When it is first seen, all hands turn out, and a
desperate attempt is made to overcome the common foe.
Sometimes a counter fire is started, which, proceeding from the
settler's log house in the face of the wind, towards the grander coming
volume, takes away its force, and leaves it nothing to feed upon. Then
it dies away in that direction. In one instance an emigrant was
travelling in a close covered waggon, when he was overtaken by the
flames. In a moment, horses, family, waggon, and everything were
destroyed, and scarcely a vestige remained of what had been.
Abram Garfield had successfully planted his second crop, which was
nearly ready for the harvest, when he one day heard the terrible cry,
"A fire in the forest." No one knew better than he did the meaning of
those fearful words. Not a moment was to be lost, for he saw that it
was coming in the direction of his little farm. He had no one to help
him but his wife and his two eldest children, but they all set to work
to save their home and the ripening crops.
Rapidly they threw up a bank of earth between the fields and the coming
fire, and they so far succeeded that it swept round their homestead and
continued its progress beyond.
After the long, hard fight with the fire, on a hot day in July, Mr.
Garfield sat down on the trunk of a tree to rest. He had, however,
conquered one enemy only to fall a victim to another. While sitting
resting, and cooling himself in the open air, he caught a chill. That
night he awoke in great pain, and his wife thought that he would die
before help could be obtained.
In the early morning she sent her daughter Mehetabel for Uncle Boynton,
and bade Thomas fetch their nearest neighbour. No doctor lived near,
and the friends did all they could for the stricken man. Their efforts
were in vain. Gradually he became weaker, and then without a struggle
he passed away. His last words to his wife were: "I have planted four
saplings in these woods; I must now leave them to your care."
Mrs. Garfield carried her burden of sorrow to that Heavenly Father whom
she had learned to trust before the dark cloud of bereavement fell upon
her heart and home. But for her confidence in God, and her belief that
He would aid her to bring up her fatherless children, she might have
given up in despair.
Far from churchyard or cemetery, the widow arranged to bury her dead in
the plot of land he had saved from the fire, at the cost of his life.
A rough wooden box was made to contain the remains of the brave husband
and loving father, and a grave was dug in a corner of the wheatfield.
Four or five neighbours, all who lived within a radius of ten miles,
attended the funeral, and tried to cheer the hearts of the widow and
orphans by sympathetic words and kind and thoughtful actions. Tenderly
they bore the body of Abram Garfield to its last resting-place and
committed it to the earth, without a prayer except the silent ones
which no ear but God's heard.
Then they accompanied the bereaved ones back to their own desolate
home. How desolate it was, none who read this book can fully realise.
To be alone in the wilderness is an awful experience, which intensified
the loss a hundred-fold.