The Voyage of the Rattletrap | Page 9

a pretty sight when they were green and thrifty earlier in the season, but they were dry and withered now.
"Do you ever have prairie-fires on your roofs?" asked Ollie, with a smile.
"Oh, they do burn off sometimes," answered the man. "Catch from the chimney, you know. Did you ever see a hay fire?"
"No."
"Come inside and I'll show you one."
In the house, which consisted of one large room divided across one end by a curtain, Ollie noticed a few chairs and a table, and opposite the door a stove which looked very much like an ordinary cook-stove, except that the place for the fire was rather larger. Back of it stood a box full of what seemed to be big hay rope. The man's wife was cooking dinner on the stove.
"Here's a young tenderfoot," said the man, "who's never seen a hay fire."
"Wish I never had," answered the woman. The man laughed. "They're hardly as good as a wood fire or a coal fire," he said to Ollie; "but when you're five hundred miles, more or less, from either wood or coal they do very well." The man took off one of the griddles and put in another "stick" of hay. Then he handed one to Ollie, who was surprised to find it almost as heavy as a stick of wood. "It makes a fairly good fire," said the man. "Come outside and I'll show you how to twist it."
[Illustration: First Lesson in Hay Twisting]
They went out to a haystack near by, and the man twisted a rope three or four inches in diameter, and about four feet long. He kept hold of both ends till it was wound up tight; then he brought the ends together, and it twisted itself into a hard two-strand rope in the same way that a bit of string will do when similarly treated. There was quite a pile of such twisted sticks on the ground. "You see," said the man, "in this country, instead of splitting up a pile of fuel we just twist up one." Ollie bade the man good-bye, took another look at the queer house, and came down to the wagon.
"So you saw a hay-stove, did you?" said Jack. "I could have told you all about 'em. I once stayed all night with a man who depended on a hay-stove for warmth. It was in the winter. Talk about appetites! I never saw such an appetite as that stove had for hay. Why, that stove had a worse appetite than Old Blacky. It devoured hay all the time, just as Old Blacky would if he could; and even then its stomach always seemed empty. The man twisted all of the time, and I fed it constantly, and still it was never satisfied."
"How did you sleep?" asked Ollie.
"Worked right along in our sleep--like Old Browny," answered Jack.
The last day before reaching Yankton was hot and sultry. The best place we could find to camp that night was beside a deserted sod house on the prairie. There was a well and a tumble-down sod stable. There were dark bands of clouds low down on the southeastern horizon, and faint flashes 'of lightning.
"It's going to rain before morning," I said. "Wonder if it wouldn't be better in the sod house?"
We examined it, but found it in poor condition, so decided not to give up the wagon. "The man that lived there pulled too many radishes and parsnips and carrots and such things into it, and then neglected to hoe his roof and fill up the holes," said Jack. "Besides, Old Blacky will have it rubbed down before morning. 'When I sleep in anything that Old Blacky can get at, I want it to be on wheels so it can roll out of the way."
We went to bed as usual, but at about one o'clock we were awakened by a long rolling peal of thunder. Already big drops of rain were beginning to fall. Ollie and I looked out, and found Jack creeping from under the wagon.
"That's a dry-weather bedroom of mine," he observed, "and I think I'll come up-stairs."
The flashes of lightning followed each other rapidly, and by them we could see the horses. Old Browny was sleeping and Old Blacky eating, but the pony stood with head erect, very much interested in the storm. Jack helped Snoozer into the wagon, and came in himself. We drew both ends of the cover as close as possible, lit the lantern, and made ourselves comfortable, while Jack took down his banjo and tried to play. Jack always tried to play, but never quite succeeded. But he made a considerable noise, and that was better than nothing.
The wind soon began to blow pretty fresh, and shake the cover rather more than was pleasant. But. nothing gave way,