“No,” said Dorothy; “for the wind went down about nine o’clock, and, though the fire looked very bright, my father said it would not spread any more.”
“How did it look the next morning?” asked Rollo.
“It only looked smoky,” replied Dorothy. “In fact, we never could see any light in the daytime; nothing but smoke. When there was a wind, the smoke increased; and then, if night came on, the sky looked bright and glowing; but if there was not any wind, the fire seemed to die away. Once I thought it was all out.”
“And wasn’t it?” asked Rollo.
“No,” replied Dorothy; “my father said that nothing but a good rain would put it out.”
“Why did not your father go,” asked Rollo, “and put it out with some buckets of water?”
“Buckets of water, child!” said Dorothy; “do you suppose that you can put out a fire in the woods with buckets of water?”
“Why, no,” said Rollo, “I suppose not. But they could put it out with such engines as we saw in the city; I know they could.”
“You know a great many things that I don’t,” said Dorothy. “However, we did not have any engines, and so there was nothing to do but to wait for rain. But it happened to be a dry time just then, and there was not any rain for a week; and so the fire continued, sometimes burning up bright, and sometimes dying away, but all the time drawing gradually nearer to our house.
“At last, one night it got so near that my father said that he did not know but that he ought to sit up and keep watch; but the wind shifted before bedtime, and blew it off in another direction, and so he went to bed.