“But won’t there want to be some healing-salve on it?”
“Healing-salve? fiddlestick! I’ve seen Indians cut half to pieces, scalded, and burnt, and get well, and I never saw any salve among them. Now,” continued Uncle Isaac (who, though one of the kindest-hearted men alive, was but little given to sentiment, and entirely practical in all his views), “we can do no more good here; let us bring the furniture into the house for Ben, and then I want to finish that burn; we’ll set it on fire at the other end; it will be fun to see it come down before the wind. It can do no harm, for there are enough of us to take care of it. I reckon I know something about this business.”
His proposal was received with cheers. While some brought the things into the house, others furled the vessel’s sails, and carried out an anchor astern, to hold the vessel when she should float, as it was half ebb when they ran her on. Henry Griffin was cook, and they left him aboard to get supper.
At any other time Charlie would have been very anxious to have gone with them, but the suffering of his mother, and the care of the baby, put everything else out of his head. He kissed her again and again, with tears in his eyes, made gruel for her, and did everything in his power to relieve her.
The party found that the fire had made but slow progress against the wind, which now blew half a gale. Arming themselves with blazing brands, they proceeded to the upper part of the piece, and fired the mass of dry material in fifteen or twenty different places. An enormous volume of smoke and flame instantly arose, and swept down before the wind, presenting a truly magnificent spectacle. In clearing land they are not particular to cut every tree. Sometimes there will be an old dead pine full of pitch, that, as it makes no shade to hurt a crop, and draws nothing from the soil, they let it alone. At other times they make what they call a drive; they cut a number of trees partly off, and then, picking out a very large one, fall it on the rest, and thus drive them all down together,—as boys set up a row of bricks, and starting one throw down the whole,—which saves them a great deal of cutting. A good many trees are broken off in these drives twenty or thirty feet from the ground, and, if they stand any time in hot weather, the pitch will fry out of them, and run in little yellow threads to the ground. There were a great many trees in this lot that had been standing a good while, and were full of pitch. It was now twilight, and as the flame struck one of these trees the little threads of pitch flashed like powder, and the flame, following them up the body of the tree with a rush and roar, spouted from the top in grand style, amid the loud shouts of the performers. At times there would be a great dry stub as big as a hogshead, and the fire, getting in at the roots, would run up the inside, and roar and blaze from the top like a dozen chimneys.
The flames would also, once in the while, catch a large tree in the forest on the middle ridge, and run from limb to limb clear to the top, shining far into the depths of the forest.
Although it was rare sport, there was a great deal of effort connected with it, as they were obliged to exert themselves to the utmost to prevent the fire from getting into the standing growth on the western side, as on the other side the clearing extended to the shore; but this, with these hardy natures, only gave zest to the proceedings.
“Quit that, Joe Griffin; what are you thrashing me with that hemlock limb for?” cried Robert Yelf.
“Jerusalem! if my eyes ain’t so full of smoke that I took your red face for a fire-coal.”
Many a rough joke was played, and many a sly blow given and taken, in the smoke. The fire had now nearly spent itself for lack of fuel.