“NO,” SAID JONAS; “WE MUST WHIP IT OUT.”—Page [63].
“We must get some water,” said Rollo, “from the brook. I’ll go and get a pail.”
“No, a watering-pot,” said James, “a watering-pot will be best. Let’s go and get a watering-pot.”
“No,” said Jonas; “we must whip it out with bushes. I’ll cut some bushes. Come down here with me.”
So Jonas ran down to the bank of the brook, where there were a number of low fir-trees growing. Now, the leaves of the fir-tree are very small and slender, but they stand very thick upon the branches, so that they make a very thick and heavy foliage. Jonas cut off a branch of the fir-tree, and gave it to Rollo. Then he cut off another for James, and another larger for himself; and, armed with these, the boys hastened back to the fire.
They began to whip and brush the little line of flame, and they found that they could put it out very easily. Every blow which Jonas struck, extinguished a line of the fire as long as his branch. Rollo and James threshed the ground with great vigor, too, and they put out a great deal of the fire. In fact, they soon extinguished all the flames which were creeping up the side of the hill from this first fire, except at one end, where it had got into some thistles, which Jonas had mowed down some time before, and which were now lying upon the ground dry and warm, and so thick that they made quite a hot fire. Rollo was whipping upon these thistles, when Jonas said,—
“Stop, Rollo; it is of no use to whip such a hot fire as that; it is only wasting your strength.”
“Then we can’t stop it,” said Rollo.
“Yes,” said Jonas; “wait until it has gone over the thistles, and burned them up, and then it will come to the thin grass beyond, and there we can whip it out.”
So the boys stopped to rest while the thistles were burning, surveying, in the meantime, the large space which had been burned over, and which looked scorched and blackened.