The Allis Family | Page 3

a noise, Susie?"
"Oh, no, indeed; but we did not want to make you sick," said Susie, clinging to her mother, and looking into her face with her loving eyes.
"Then you love your mother, do you, girls?"
"Indeed we do," said the children, in one breath.
"Well, supposing your mother had been well, and some poor sick woman, whom you had never seen before, lay here sick in my bed: would it have been more pleasant then for you to be very still, so as not to disturb her?"
The girls hesitated a moment, and then Annie said,--
"I think it would, mother; for it would be very cruel to make anybody suffer, I have heard you say."
"Then you could love a poor stranger enough to deny yourself some of your own pleasures for her sake; and you think it would make you happier to do so, do you?"
"Oh, yes, I am sure we should be happier," said little Susie.
"Well, my dear children, I cannot talk any longer now, but I want you to repeat this little verse after me until you can remember it:--
"Love is the golden chain that binds The happy souls above; And he's an heir of heaven that finds His bosom glow with love."
* * * * *

THE PRAIRIE FIRE.
It was a trying summer for the Allis family. The weather was hot and dry, and Mr. Allis, unaccustomed to labour in the fields, often almost fainted in the sun. His work seemed to him to progress very slowly. He had no one to assist him in sowing and planting and gathering in his crops; for, in the first place, there were few people to be hired, and, more than that, he had no money to pay his workmen if he had been able to obtain them. Every morning he had to go more than a mile with his oxen for water, which he brought in a barrel for family use; and it was often nine o'clock before he got to his work in the fields.
At length November came and found his summer's work completed. He had no barn in which to store his grain, and could only secure it by "stacking" it until it could be threshed.
The potatoes, squashes, pumpkins, beets, turnips and other vegetables which the garden had produced for winter use were as securely housed as possible and protected from the frost; and Mr. Allis began to hope that now he might take that rest which he so much required.
For a number of weeks the children had been excited by wonderful lights in the sky, just above the horizon. Sometimes eight or ten of these could be seen in different directions at once, and occasionally some one of them would seem to shoot up suddenly, not unlike the flame of a distant volcano. To the eager inquiries of the little ones, they were answered that these singular lights were called prairie-fires.
"What is a prairie-fire, father?" asked both the children at once.
"It is the burning of the long coarse grass which covers the prairie in summer. This becomes very dry, and then, if a spark of fire chances to fall upon it, it is at once all in blaze."
"Does it make a very big fire, father?" asked Susie.
"That depends upon circumstances, my child. If the grass is very high and thick, as it sometimes is in the sloughs and moist places, it makes a big fire, as you call it."
"Oh, how I wish I could see a prairie-fire close by us! Don't you, mother?"
"I cannot say that I do, my child; they are sometimes rather mischievous visitors, and I would much prefer that they should keep at a respectful distance."
"Mr. Jenkins told me that a man some ten miles from here had his stacks and house and every thing he had, destroyed, a few days since, losing his whole year's labour and all his clothing and furniture. The family barely escaped with their lives.
"Is there any danger that the fire will come here, husband?" said Mrs. Allis.
"There is danger, I suppose; but I hope we shall have no trouble of that kind."
"Is there nothing that can be done to protect your property?"
"I shall try to burn up what grows around the house and stack-yard in a day or two, I think; but just now it does not seem possible for me to spare the time."
One day, not long after, a long line of fire appeared on the prairie, several miles distant. It was, however, so distant that Mrs. Allis and the children did not feel alarmed, as the evening was still; and they were watching it with interest, as the flames assumed various fantastic shapes, now darting upwards like tongues of fire, and now weltering and bubbling like a sea of melted lava. Mr. Allis had not yet returned from