Page:Dorothy Canfield - Understood Betsy.djvu/85

Rh rather abruptly, looking uneasy. Uncle Henry inquired: "Now there's one thing I've always wanted to know. How do they keep that stuff from hardening on them? How do they keep it hot?"

The little girl looked blank. "Why, a fire, I suppose, " she faltered, searching her memory desperately and finding there only a dim recollection of a red glow somewhere connected with the familiar scene at which she had so often looked with unseeing eyes.

"Of course a fire," agreed Uncle Henry. "But what do they burn in it, coke or coal or wood or charcoal? And how do they get any draft to keep it going?"

Elizabeth Ann shook her head. "I never noticed," she said.

Aunt Abigail asked her now, "What do they do to the road before they pour it on?"

"Do?" said Elizabeth Ann. "I didn't know they did anything." "Well, they can't pour it right on a dirt