“Have you been trying it?” she asked.
“Yes, and I’ve rubbed and rubbed and rubbed, and they don’t light at all.” He showed the sticks that he had been rubbing broadside against broadside till they were quite nicely polished.
Marian had to laugh.
“Dear boy, they don’t do it that way,” she said. “I don’t know that I can do it, but I saw it done once. I truly did. Do you remember that man—I don’t suppose you do, though, you were so little, but he was uncle to the lady that lived in the white house just across the stream there where we lived before Ronald died.”
“I remember the white house,” said Delbert, “and the lady,—Mrs. Walton, wasn’t it? She had the funny cats with long hair and she always had pink ribbons on their necks.”
“Angora cats. Yes, I remember she had a couple. Well, her uncle came to visit her once, and he had been agent or something out on an Indian reservation, and he knew all kinds of Indian things that the Walton boys wanted to know, and so he used to tell them about these things, and I took it all in whenever I was there. He knew how to scalp a dead enemy, and how to tie a live one to a horse so he couldn’t get away. I remember those two things distinctly, and he explained about smoking a peace pipe, and how to tell which way you were going when you got lost, and also—how to make a fire with two sticks.”
“Well, I just want you to show me; that’s all!”
“All right, we’ll try it. That man told just what kind of wood to use, but I’ve forgotten that, and probably we couldn’t get the same kind anyway. I guess this piece will do to begin with, and if it doesn’t work we’ll try some other kind. Now, it wants a nice smooth, round stick. Give me your knife; I can whittle better with it than I can with the other one. Let me see, it needs a—where is that broken bottle that Davie was playing with that just had the rounded bottom left on it? That’s it. You see, now, we have this stick about a foot long, and we smooth one end off nicely, and we make the other one pointed, then we make a little notch in this other stick and down like that. Where is your bow? I believe that is too big. Give me Jennie’s and tighten the string on it. Now I put this big stick with the notches down where I can hold it firm with my foot, so, and take a turn of the bowstring around the little round stick, so, and—give me that piece of bottle—I put it over the top end of the round stick so it can revolve smoothly, which it could not do in the palm of my hand,—at least, not without wearing my hand out,—and I fit the pointed end into the top notch I made in the other stick, so. Now, you will see how quick we’ll have a fire here.”
She started drawing the bow back and forth, thereby twirling the stick first one way and then the other, and she whirled and whirled and whirled it till her arm fairly ached; but nothing came of it. She took a rest and tried again. This time she produced smoke and charred the sticks a little, but still no fire.