THE ROLLO PHILOSOPHY.
FIRE.
CHAPTER I.
SLOW COMBUSTION.
The way in which it happened that Rollo’s father first began to explain to him something about the nature of fire, was this: It was one evening early in the autumn. Dorothy was going away to visit one of her friends, and Rollo was waiting for Jonas to come out, and see the fire-flies, or lightning-bugs, as he called them, which were flying about the yard. But Jonas did not come as soon as Rollo had expected, and so he went into the kitchen to see what had become of him. He found that, as Dorothy was rather late for her visit, and still had her kitchen fire to cover up, Jonas was just offering to cover it up for her, so that she could go at once without any further delay. So Rollo came in, and stood by the kitchen hearth to see Jonas cover up the fire.
The fire had nearly burned out, but it had left quite a large bed of embers, and a few coals among them. Jonas took the long-handled iron shovel, which belonged to the kitchen fire, and with it he drew forward all these coals and embers, so as to leave the back part of the hearth bare. Then he took the tongs, and with the tongs he gathered out from the hot ashes all the coals which he could find among the ashes, and put them back upon the bare place which he had made upon the hearth. He spread them evenly over it in a row against the back of the chimney.
“What are you going to do, Jonas?” said Rollo.
“I am going to cover up a stick of wood,” replied Jonas.
So Jonas opened a small door which led to a little wood closet by the side of the fire, and took out a short stick of wood, flat on one side and round on the other. It was a stick which was round first, but Jonas had split it in two. It was part of a great branch of a tree, large enough to make a good log, only Jonas saw that it would split easily, and so he had split it in two. The other half of it was still in the wood closet.
“This is just the stick,” said Jonas.