"Is you gwine to git it from de sun, Mas' Sam?"
"Yes."
"What wid, Mas' Sam?"
"With water, Joe."
"Wid water, Mas' Sam! You'se foolin'. How you gwine to git fire wid water, I'd like to know."
"Well, wait and see. I'm not fooling."
To tell the truth, Tom was quite as much at a loss as Joe was, to know how Sam could get fire with water; but his confidence in his "big brother," as he called Sam, was too perfect to admit of a doubt or a question. As for Judie, she would hardly have raised her eyebrows if Sam had burned water, or whittled it into dolls' heads before her eyes. She believed in Sam absolutely, and supposed, as a matter of course, that he knew everything and could do anything he liked. But Joe was not yet satisfied that water could be made to assist in the kindling of a fire. He said nothing more, however, but carefully watched all of Sam's preparations.
That young gentleman began by tearing a strip of cotton cloth from his shirt, and picking it to pieces. He then gathered from the drift-wood a number of dry sticks, and broke and split them up very fine.
"We must have a few splinters of light-wood," he said; "but after the fire is once started, we mustn't put any more pine on."
So saying, he split off a few splinters from a piece of rich heart-pine, which Southern people call "light-wood," because the negroes use it instead of lamps or candles.