CHAPTER II.
FIRE.
Levi entered the house. Uncle Nathan was not at home, but he was probably somewhere in the vicinity. Aunt Susan was in the kitchen baking her weekly batch of brown bread, the staple article of food in the family, because it was cheaper than white bread.
"Aunt, I want to go up in the garret and get that little saw-mill I made four or five years ago," said Levi.
"Well, I s'pose you can," replied she, filling up the old brick oven with pine wood, which cracked and snapped furiously in the fierce flames.
"It's up there now—isn't it?"
"I s'pose 'tis, if you put it there; I hain't teched it."
"Will you give me a little piece of candle, too, if you please?"
"You can take that piece in the candlestick on the mantel-tree piece, if it's long enough."