74 Next to the Ground 



the furrow edge. In a minute the work 

 was over. Banners and pennons of flame 

 leaped up into the sky, swirled into roaring 

 vortexes, and swept hissing, roaring, crack- 

 ling, sparking in showers, smoking in clouds, 

 in sheeted splendor down the length of the 

 field. In the swales where the tangle lay 

 thickest, there was a curious drawing of flame 

 to flame. Lesser flames either side joined to 

 shape a fiery pyramid, whose waving point 

 seemed to melt into the low clouds. Swiftly 

 falling darkness made the flames majestic. 

 Their light filled all the fields and flickered 

 back like the angry crimson of sunset from 

 the gable windows of the plantation house. 

 The fallows were so bright, you could trace 

 the green drill-rows half across them. The 

 moon, creeping up behind clouds, the round, 

 red Hunter's Moon of late October, turned 

 garish and ghastly by contrast with the field 

 fire. 



Undervoicing the flame, there was the pop- 

 ping of hollow weed stalks, the tinkle of 

 woody stems crisping and falling in coals. 

 Between them wind and fire were making 

 quick work and clean. They would leave 

 hardly a wagon load of bush-butts and charred 

 sticks in the whole field. The burning sassa- 

 fras gave out a clean, strong scent, wonderfully 

 pleasant. Young pithy stalks of it popped like 



