“It was the noise that my father made calling up my brother, and running out. Then, besides, there was a great roaring and crackling of the flames. I got up, and dressed myself, and ran down stairs, and I found the woods all on fire close by our house.”
“Why, I thought your house was in the middle of the opening,” said Rollo.
“No,” replied Dorothy; “it was upon one side of the opening,—pretty near the woods. There was a brush fence running along at the edge of the woods, and a log fence leading from the brush fence to our barnyard. The brush fence was all on fire, and it was blazing up very high, and beyond it, in the woods, the ground was covered in every direction with heaps of logs, and branches, and old trees, all on fire, and burning furiously. The air was full of smoke and sparks, and the wind was driving them directly towards our house and barn.
“Just then I heard behind me a great crackling, which burst out very loud and suddenly. I looked to see what it was, and I found that the fire had got into the top of a great hemlock-tree, and it was blazing away from the top to the bottom of it. But I had no time to stand looking at it, for my father told me to go and get some water at the spring, and then to watch, and look all about the yard, and if I saw the fire catching any where to put it out.”
“Why did not he do that himself?” asked Rollo.
“O, he had to go,” replied Dorothy, “and pull the log fence to pieces; for the fire was creeping along the log fence towards our barn. The barn was full of hay, which my father had got in only a few weeks before, and there was a great haystack in the barnyard besides; and if these should get on fire, the house would probably go too, for the house was very near.”
“And did they get on fire?” asked Rollo.
“No,” replied Dorothy; “my father pulled away the log fence, and then the fire could not get to the house and barn in any way except by sparks through the air. And to keep the sparks from catching on the roof, he got up upon the barn, and my brother got upon the house; and then my mother brought them water from the spring. So they wet the roofs all over. Once a spark lighted on the haystack, and set it on fire; but my father saw it smoking, and he came down quick from the barn, and carried the ladder to the haystack, and climbed up, and put it out with his pail of water. There was another spark, too, which caught upon the chips in the yard, near the woodpile; and I put that out.”
“How long did you have to stay?” asked Rollo.
“O, till the morning,” said Dorothy, “and then the wind died all away. And in the course of that day, there came on a rain storm, and it put the fires out. But when I first came out to see it that night, I can tell you the sight was very terrible.”