The Glad, Rejoicing Storm In
Glorious Voice Was Singing Through The Woods, Noble Compensation For
Mere Body Discomfort.
But I wanted a fire, a big one, to see as well
as hear how the storm and trees were behaving.
After long, patient
groping I found a little dry punk in a hollow trunk and carefully
stored it beside my matchbox and an inch or two of candle in an
inside pocket that the rain had not yet reached; then, wiping some
dead twigs and whittling them into thin shavings, stored them with
the punk. I then made a little conical bark hut about a foot high,
and, carefully leaning over it and sheltering it as much as possible
from the driving rain, I wiped and stored a lot of dead twigs,
lighted the candle, and set it in the hut, carefully added pinches of
punk and shavings, and at length got a little blaze, by the light of
which I gradually added larger shavings, then twigs all set on end
astride the inner flame, making the little hut higher and wider. Soon
I had light enough to enable me to select the best dead branches and
large sections of bark, which were set on end, gradually increasing
the height and corresponding light of the hut fire. A considerable
area was thus well lighted, from which I gathered abundance of wood,
and kept adding to the fire until it had a strong, hot heart and sent
up a pillar of flame thirty or forty feet high, illuminating a wide
circle in spite of the rain, and casting a red glare into the flying
clouds.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 22 of 316
Words from 5835 to 6107
of 85542
