“Couldn’t I squirt with my engine just a little bit?” begged Trouble, when he saw that the excitement was dying out with the fire.
“No, indeed,” his mother told him. “Fires are good places to stay away from for little boys.”
“I’m gettin’ to be a big boy. Daddy said so,” pouted Trouble.
“Well, you aren’t big enough, yet, to put out fires,” his mother remarked, with a laugh.
But a little later the fire was so nearly out that she took the Curlytops and Trouble close to see what damage had been done. Aside from a few boards and the sawdust that had been burned, the loss was small. There was no loss in the sawdust, for it was of no use. Some farmers living near by used to come to get a load or two to fill their ice houses, but the remainder was allowed to rot in the forest.
After the fire was over Mr. Martin and Tod Everett, the foreman, began asking how it had started. No one had really seen the first tiny blaze begin, but it was thought that sparks from the smoke stack of the sawmill must have started it. This seemed most likely.
“Then you had better put a spark arrester on that stack,” said Mr. Martin to the mill foreman.
“I will,” agreed Mr. Everett. “We don’t want any more blazes. The next time more than sawdust might go up in smoke. I intended to have a spark arrester on that stack all along, but there has been so much to do, starting this new camp, that I haven’t got at it. But I surely will make a spark arrester now.”
“Mother, how can they arrest sparks?” Trouble asked in a whisper, as he heard this talk. “Does they have a policeman to arrest sparks?”
“If they do he’d have to travel in an airship!” laughed Ted. “For the sparks are always flying through the air.”