Andy made for these with the rake. He beat at them and scraped the ground. He stamped with his stockinged feet and pulled up clumps of stubble with his hands.
The trouble was that so many little fires started up at so many different spots. Finally, however, the ground was a mass of burned-out grass for twenty feet clear around the centre of the blaze.
The haystack was sinking down a glowing mass, but now confined itself and past spreading out.
Andy flung himself on the ground fairly exhausted. His hands and face were somewhat blistered, and he was wringing wet with perspiration.
He looked pretty serious as he did "a sum out of school."
"That stack held about two tons and a-half," he calculated. "I heard a farmer at the post-office say yesterday that he was getting eight dollars in the stack for hay. There's twenty dollars gone up in smoke. Where will I ever get twenty dollars?"
Andy became more and more despondent the longer he thought of the dismal situation.
He stirred himself to action. With the rake he heaped together the brittle filaments of burned hay.
"It can't spread any now," he decided finally. "It's dying down to nothing. Now then, what's next?"
Andy took a far look in all directions. The fire had burned so rapidly and clear in the crisp light air that it did not seem to have been observed in the village.