Caleb in the Country Part 11

Caleb walked along, the bark blazing higher and higher, and curling in upon itself more and more, until, at length, he began to be afraid it would reach his fingers before he could get to his chimney. He walked faster and faster, and presently began to run. This fanned the fire the more, until, just as he came within a few steps of his chimney, the curling bark reached his fingers, and he tripped over a great root at the very instant when he was dropping the piece of bark from his hands.

He came down upon all-fours, and the bark which was now a compact roll, rolled down a little slope, crackling and blazing by the way.

Caleb got up and looked at the blazing ma.s.s a minute or two, in despair; but finding that it kept on burning, his eye suddenly brightened, and he said aloud,

"I'll poke it up."

So he looked around for a stick. He readily found one, and began to push the blazing roll up the acclivity; but as fast as he pushed it up, it rolled down again, and all his efforts were consequently vain.

"O dear me!" said Caleb, at length throwing down his stick, "what _shall_ I do?"

In the meantime the roll continued blazing, and Caleb, looking at it steadily, observed that it was hollow.

"Ah," said he, "I'll _stick_ him."

So he took up his stick again, and tried to thrust the end of the stick _into_ the roll. After one or two ineffectual attempts, he succeeded, though by this time the bark was pretty well burnt through, and was all ready to fall to pieces. He, however, succeeded in raising it into the air, upon the end of his pole; but before he got it to the hollow tree, it dropped off again in several blazing fragments, which continued to burn a moment upon the ground, and then went out entirely.

Caleb then went to Raymond, and told him that he could not make his fire burn.

"O you must not come to me, youngster; you promised not to trouble me with it," said Raymond, as he hooked the chain around the b.u.t.t-end of another tree.

"But I thought I could make it burn."

"Well, what's the matter with it? But stand back, for I am going to start this tree along."

"Why the bark all curls up and burns my hand," said Caleb, retreating at the same time out of the way of the top of Raymond's tree.

The oxen started along, dragging the tree, and Caleb followed, trying to get an opportunity to speak once more to Raymond. Raymond, however, went calling aloud to his oxen, and directing them here and there with his "Gee, Star," and his "Ha, Lion," and his "Wo up, Whoa".

At length, however, he had the tree in its place, and seeing Caleb standing at a little distance patiently, he asked him again,

"What do you say is the matter with your fire, Caleb?"

"Why, the birch bark curls up and burns me: I wish you would come and set it a-fire."

"No," said Raymond, walking along by the side of his oxen; "I must not leave my work to help you play; but I will tell you three ways to carry the fire, and you can manage it in one or the other of them."

So saying, he took out his knife, and cut down a small, slender maple, which was growing near him, and trimmed off the top and the few little branches which were growing near the top. It made a slender pole about five feet long, with smooth but freckled bark, from end to end. He then made a little split in one end.

"There, Caleb," said he, "take that, and stick a piece of birch bark in the split end; then you can carry it, and let it curl as much as it pleases. Or, if that fails, put a large piece of birch bark directly upon the fire. Then, as soon as it begins to burn, it will begin to curl, and then you must put the end of the stick down to it, in such a manner that the bark will curl over and grasp it, and then you can take it up and carry the roll upon the end of your pole."

"Very well," said Caleb, "there are two ways."

"There are two ways," repeated Raymond.

"Now, if both these fail, you must put on a good many fresh sticks upon the fire, with one end of each of them out. Then, as soon as the ends which are in the fire have got burnt through, take up two of them by the ends that were out of the fire and lay them down at the foot of the hollow tree, close to the wood you have got together there. Then come back and get two more brands, and lay them down in the same way, and be careful to have the burnt ends all together. So you must keep going back and forth, until you find that the brands are beginning to burn up freely in the new place."

Caleb took the maple pole and went back to his fire. He tore the salt-cellar in two, and this made two very good small strips of bark.

He pulled open the split end of his pole, and carefully inserted one of them, and then, holding it over a little flame which was rising from a burning brand, he set it on fire. The bark was soon in a blaze, and it writhed and curled as if it were struggling to get away; but it only clung to the end of the pole more closely; and Caleb, much pleased at the success of his experiment, waved it in the air, and shouted to Raymond to look and see.

He then walked slowly along, stopping every moment to wave his great flambeau, and shout; and so, when at last he reached the hollow tree, the bark was nearly burnt out, and the fragments were beginning to fall off from the end of the pole. He then thrust it hastily under the heap of fuel, which had been collected in the tree; but it was too late. It flickered and smoked a minute or two, and finally went out altogether.

"I don't care," said Caleb to himself, "for I have got the other half of the salt-cellar;" and he went back for that. It happened unluckily, however, this time, that, in pulling open the cleft which Raymond had made in his maple pole, he pulled too hard, and split one side off. Here was at once an end to all attempts to communicate fire to his chimney by this method. So, after refitting the split part of his stick to its place, once or twice, and finding that the idea of uniting it again was entirely out of the question, he threw the broken piece away, and said to himself that he must try Raymond's second plan.

He accordingly took the other large piece of bark, which was the one which Raymond had used for his plate, and laid it upon the fire. As soon as it began to curl, he laid the end of the stick close to it, on the side towards which it seemed to be bending,--and in such a way that it curled over upon it, and soon clasped it tight, as Raymond had predicted that it would do. He then raised it in the air, and set out to run with it, so that it should not burn out before he reached the place. But he ought not to have run. It would have been far safer and better to have walked along carefully and slowly; for as he ran on, jumping over logs and stones, and scrambling up and down the hummocks, the top of the pole, with the blazing roll of bark, was jerked violently about in the air, until, at length, as he was wheeling around a tree, he accidentally held the top of the pole so far that it wheeled round through the air very swiftly, and threw the birch bark off by the centrifugal force: and away it went, rolling along upon the ground.

The centrifugal force is that which makes any thing fly off when it is whirled round and round.

Caleb did not understand this very well, but he was surprised to see his roll flying off in that manner. He immediately took two sticks, and tried to take up the roll with them, as one would with a pair of tongs; but he could not hold it with them.

"Well, then," said he, "I must try the third way."

So he began to gather sticks, and put the ends of them upon the fire.

When they began to burn, he took up one; but as soon as he got it off the fire, it began to go out, and he said that he knew that way to kindle a fire never would do. In fact, he began to get out of patience.

He threw down the stick, and went off again after Raymond.

"Raymond," said he, "I _cannot_ make my fire burn; and I wish you would come and kindle it for me."

"Have you tried the ways I told you about?"

"Yes," said Caleb.

"Have you tried all of them faithfully?"

"All but the last," said Caleb, "and I know that won't do."

"You must try them all, faithfully, or else I can't come." So saying, Raymond went on with his work.

Caleb went back a good deal out of humour with himself, and saying that he wished Raymond was not so cross. He took up two of the sticks, which were now pretty well on fire, and carried them along, swinging them by the way, to make fiery rings and serpents in the air. When he reached the chimney, he threw them down carelessly, and stood watching them, to see if they were going to burn. Instead, however, of setting the other wood on fire, they only grew dimmer and dimmer themselves; and he said to himself, "I knew they would not burn." Then he sat down upon a log, in a sad state of fretfulness and dissatisfaction.

However, after waiting a few minutes, longer, he went back to the fire, determined to bring all the brands there were, and put them down, though he knew, he said, that they would not burn. He was going to do it, so that then he could go and tell Raymond that he had tried all his plans, and that now he must come, and light the fire himself.

So he walked along, back and forth bringing the brands, and laying them down together near the foot of the heap of fuel in the tree. But before he had brought them all, he found that they began to brighten up a little, and at length they broke out into a little flame. He stood and watched it a few minutes. It blazed up higher and higher. He then put on some more wood which was near. The flame crept up between these sticks, and soon began to snap and crackle among the brush in the tree. Caleb stepped back, and watched the flame a moment as it flashed up higher and higher, and then clapped his hands, jumped up on a log, and shouted out,

"Raymond, it's a-burning, its a-burning."

CHAPTER X.

THE CAPTIVE.

When Raymond heard Caleb's voice calling to him so loudly, he paused a moment from his work, and seeing that the fire had actually taken, in earnest, he told Caleb that he must go back a little way, for by-and-bye the tree would fall. So Caleb went back to some distance, and asked Raymond if that was far enough. Raymond said it was, and Raymond then sat down upon a log, with his maple pole in his hand, to watch the progress of the fire.

A dense smoke soon began to pour out of the top of the chimney. The fire roared up through the hollow, and it caught outside too, under the bark, and soon enveloped the whole tree in smoke, sparks, and flame. Large pieces of the blazing bark detached themselves, from time to time, from the side of the tree, and came down, crackling and sparkling to the ground; and the opening below where Caleb had crammed in his fuel, soon glowed like the mouth of a furnace.

Near the top of the tree was an old branch, or rather the stump of an old branch, decayed and blackened, reaching out a little way, like an arm. This was soon enveloped in smoke; and, as Caleb was watching it, as it appeared and disappeared in the wreaths, he thought he saw something move. He looked again, intently. It was a squirrel,--half suffocated in the smoke, and struggling to hold on. Caleb immediately called out to Raymond as loud as he could call,