Page:The New-Year's Bargain (1884).djvu/134

 "We were drawing near a clearing. I had been there before,—a neat, thriving place where all was in order, and children played beside the door. I recollected one little girl with a rosy face, and for the first time felt the stirrings of pity round my heart. So, holding back my companion a moment, I shouted, from amid the smoke, a warning to the sleepers within,—a warning in an awful voice.

"In a minute they were awake, and out they poured. It was pitiful to see. Calmly and without fear they had lain down to sleep, thinking us miles away. And here we were at the very door! The farmer was not at home, but his wife was. And all I can say is," remarked August, admiringly, "if he's any more of a man than she, it would be worth people's while to go a good way to look at him.

"For only think what that woman had on her hands. Behind, around, all was fire. Sparks were falling upon the barn, the sheep in the fields were blazing and dying in dreadful heaps.