Mv big brothers were made into lumber or mine- 

 props, but because I was small they ground me and 

 bleached me and beat me and rolled me flat and 

 shiny between great rollers and called me paper and 

 here I am helping to educate the world. 



'That is most astonishing," said the Stove, almost 

 taken off his feet by this outburst. "But I begin to 

 feel contempt for your Red Demon for I see that it is 

 nothing but Fire. And what do I care for Fire? Do 

 I not eat -Fire every day? Do I not cause Fire to 

 warm the teacher and the pupils? He is my servant, 

 why should I fear him?" 



"True!" said the Douglas Fir in the floor, Fire 

 is a good servant but a bad master. Even you, with 

 all your bold talk, friend Stove, are not always able 

 to master him. Look at that crack in your side, 

 which he gave you last winter. I hope it will not 

 grow larger for if hot coals should drop out on me 

 then we should all be in his power and we should 

 find him indeed a Red Demon. We should all be 

 in ashes and you, Mr. Stove, would be broken and 

 melted into rough pieces like dull stones. I speak 

 feelingly because had it not been for my thick bark 

 I would never have lived till the lumbermen came to 

 make me into something useful. I was born in 

 British Columbia within sight of the Pacific Ocean. 

 There was no British Columbia then, for that was 

 nearly three hundred years ago, and in that long 

 lifetime I saw the Red Demon making war on my 

 brothers many times, and once I was nearly killed 

 myself. Sometimes lightning started the Red Demon 

 'on the war-path, sometimes a settler's clearing fire 

 got away from his clearing and rushed through the 

 woods, sometimes it was a spark from a logging 



