All the large trees that Jonas had felled beyond the brook, he cut up
into lengths, and hauled them up into the yard, and made a great high
wood-pile of them, higher than his head; but all the branches, and the
small bushes, with all the green leaves upon them, lay about the ground
in confusion. Rollo asked him what he was going to do with them. He
said, after they were dry, he should burn them up, and that they would
make a splendid bonfire.
They lay there drying a good many weeks. The leaves turned yellow and
brown, and the little twigs and sticks became gradually dry and
brittle. Rollo used to walk down there often, to see how the drying
went on, and sometimes he would bring up a few of the bushes, and put
them on the kitchen fire, to see whether they were dry enough to burn.
At last, late in the autumn, one cool afternoon, Jonas asked Rollo to
go down with him and help him pile up the bushes in heaps, for he was
going to burn them that evening. Rollo wanted very much that his
cousins James and Lucy should see the fires; and so he asked his mother
to let him go and ask them to come and take tea there that night, and
go out with them in the evening to the burning. She consented, and
Rollo went. Lucy promised to come just before tea-time, and James came
then, with Rollo, to help him pile the bushes up.
Jonas said that the boys might make one little pile of their own if
they wished; and told them that they must first make a pile of solid
sticks, and dry rotten logs as large as they could lift or roll, so as
to have a good solid fire underneath, and then cover these up with
brush as high as they could pile it, so as to make a great blaze. He
told them also that they must make their pile where it would not burn
any of the trees which he had left standing, for he had left a great
many of the large oaks, and beeches, and pines, to ornament the ground
and make a shade.
Rollo and James decided to make their pile near the brook, between the
bridge which Jonas made of a tree, and the old wigwam which they had
made some time before of boughs. They got together a great heap of
solid wood, as large pieces as they could lift, and at one end they put
in a great deal of birch bark, which they stripped off, in great
sheets, from an old, decayed birch tree, which had been lying on the
ground near, for half a century. When this was done, they began to pile
on the bushes and brush, taking care to leave the end where the birch
bark was, open. After they had piled it up as high as they could reach.
Rollo clambered up to the top of it, and James reached the long bushes
up to him, and he arranged them regularly, with the tops out. So they
worked all the afternoon, and by the time they had got their pile done,
they found that Jonas had thrown almost all the rest of the bushes into
heaps; and then they went home to tea.
They found Lucy there, and they were all so eager to go to the
bonfires, that they did not eat much supper. Their father told them
that, as they had so little appetite, they had better carry down some
potatoes and apples, and roast them by the fires. They thought this an
excellent plan, and ran into the store-room to get them. Their mother
gave them a basket to put the potatoes and apples into, and a little
salt folded up in a paper. They were then so impatient to go that their
parents said they might set off with Jonas, and they themselves would
come along very soon.
So Jonas and the three children walked on. Rollo carried the basket,
and Jonas a lantern; and Jonas, as he went along, made, with his
penknife, some flat, wooden spoons, to eat their potatoes with. They
came to the bridge, and all got safely over, though Lucy was a little
afraid at first.
They played around there a few minutes, as the twilight was coming on;
and, soon after, they saw Rollo’s father and mother coming down through
the trees, on the other side of the brook. They stopped on that side,
as Rollo’s mother did not like to come across the bridge. Pretty soon
they called out to Jonas to light the fires.
Jonas then took a large piece of birch bark, and touched the corner of
it to the lamp in the lantern, and when it was well on fire, he laid it
carefully on the ground. The bark began to blaze up very bright,
sending out volumes of thick smoke and dense flame, writhing, and
curling, and snapping, as it lay on the ground. The light shone
brightly on the grass and sticks around.
“There,” said Jonas, “that will burn some time; now you may light your
torches from that.”
“Torches?” said Rollo, “we have not got any torches.”
“Have not you made any torches? O, well,—I will make you some in a
minute.”
So he took out his knife, and selected three long slender stems of
bushes, and trimmed them up, and cut off the tops. Then he made a
little split in the top end, and slipped in a piece of birch bark. Then
he handed them to the children, one to each, and said, “There are your
torches; now you can light your fires without burning your fingers.”
So they took their torches, and held the ends over the flame of the
piece of birch bark, which, however, had by this time nearly burned
out. Lucy’s took fire, but Rollo’s and James’s did not, at first; and
as they pressed their torches down more and more to make them light,
they only smothered what little flame was left, and put it out.
“O dear me!” said Rollo.
Lucy had gone a little way towards a pile; but when she saw what was
the matter, she came back and said, “Here;—light it by mine.” So the
boys held their torches over hers until they were all three in a bright
blaze. They then carried them along, waving them in the air, and
lighting pile after pile, until the whole forest seemed to be in a
flame.
The children stood still a few moments, gazing on the fires, and on the
extraordinary effect which the light produced upon the objects around.
It was a singular scene. Flashing and crackling flames rose high from
the heaps which were on fire, and shed a strong but unsteady light on
the trees, the ground, and the banks of the brook, and penetrated deep
into the forest on every side. Rollo called upon James and Lucy to look
at his father and mother, who were across the brook; they stood there
under the trees, almost invisible before, but now the bright light
shone strongly upon their faces and forms, and cast upon them a clear
and brilliant illumination, which was strongly contrasted with the dark
depths of the forest behind them.
The children were silent, and stood still for a few minutes, gazing on
the scene with feelings of admiration and awe. They expected to have
capered about and laughed, but they found that they had no disposition
to do so. The enjoyment they felt was not of that kind which leads
children to caper and laugh. They stood still, and looked silently and
soberly on the flashing flames, the lurid light, the bright red
reflections on the woods, the banks, and the water,—and on the volumes
of glowing smoke and sparks which ascended to the sky.
Before long, however, the light fuel upon the top of the piles was
burned up, and there remained great glowing heaps of embers, and logs
of wood still flaming. These the boys began to poke about with long
poles that Jonas had cut for them, to make them burn brighter, and to
see the sparks go up. Presently they heard their father calling them.
The boys all stopped to listen.
“We are going home,” said he; “we shall take cold if we stand still
here. You may stay, however, with Jonas, only you must not sit down.”
So Rollo’s father and mother turned away, and walked along back towards
the house, the light shining more and more faintly upon them, until
they were lost among the trees.
“Why do you suppose we must not sit down?” said Lucy.
“Because,” said Jonas, “they are afraid you will take cold. As long as
you run about and play around the fires, you keep warm.”
“O, then we will run about and play fast enough,” said James. “I know
what I am going to do.”
So he took a large flat piece of hemlock bark, which he found upon the
ground, and began tearing off strips of birch bark from the old tree,
and piling them upon it.
“What are you going to do?” said Lucy.
“O, I am going to play steam-boat on fire,” said he; and he took up the
piece of bark with the little pile of combustibles upon it, and carried
it down to the edge of the brook. Then he went back and got his torch
stick, and put a fresh piece of birch bark in the split end, and
lighted it, and then came back to the brook, walking slowly lest his
torch should go out.
Lucy held his torch for him while he gently put his steam-boat on the
water; and then he lighted it with his torch, and pushed it out. It
floated down, all blazing as it was, to the great delight of the three
children, and astonishment of all the little fishes in the brook, who
could not imagine what the blazing wonder could be.
The children followed it along down the brook, and began to pelt it
with stones, and soon got into a high frolic. But as they were very
careful not to hit one another with the stones, nor to speak harshly or
cross, they enjoyed it very much. When at last the steam-boat was
fairly pelted to pieces, and the blackened fragments of the birch bark
were scattered over the water, and floating away down the stream, they
began to think of roasting their corn and potatoes, which they did very
successfully over the remains of the fires. When they had nearly
finished eating, Rollo suddenly exclaimed,—
“O, I will tell you what we will do; we will go and set our wigwam on
fire!”
Rollo pointed to the wigwam. James and Lucy looked, and observed that
it had been dried and browned in the sun, and Rollo thought it was no
longer good for any thing as a wigwam, but would make a capital
bonfire. He proposed that they should all go into it and sit down, and
put a torch near the side so as to set it on fire, as if accidentally.
They would go on talking as if they did not see it, and when the flames
burst out, they would jump up and run out, crying, Fire! as people do
when their houses get on fire.
Lucy said she should not like to do that. She should be afraid, she
said. The sparks would fall down upon her and burn her. So the boys
gave that plan up. Then James proposed that they should make believe
that they were savages, going to set fire to a town. The wigwam was to
be the town. They would take their torches, and all go and set it on
fire in several places.
“But, then, I could not help,” said Lucy, “for women do not go to war.”
“O yes, they do, if they are savages,” said James. “We play that we are
savages, you see.”
So it was all agreed to. They lighted their torches, and marched along,
waving them in the air, until they came to the wigwam, and then they
danced around it, singing and shouting as they set it on fire in many
places on all sides. The flames spread rapidly, and flashed up high
into the air, and soon there was nothing left of the poor wigwam but a
few smoking and blackened sticks lying on the ground.
The children then crept along over the bridge, and went towards home.
There were still great beds of burning embers remaining, and in some
places the remains of logs and stumps were blazing brightly. And that
night, when Rollo went to bed, he lay looking out the window which was
towards the woods, and saw the light still shining among the trees, and
the smoke slowly rising from the fires, and floating away through the
air.