GARDEN OF A COMMUTER'S WIFE 167 



Night before last was the time of the "watch fires." 

 The sun went down with the clear red afterglow that 

 in summer usually indicates the coming of hot dry 

 weather. The air in fact was warm, of the real 

 Indian summer softness, such as often continues for 

 many weeks after the killing frosts of middle No- 

 vember. 



I am glad that the watch fires are still kept up. I 

 remember being wakened, wrapped in a blanket, and 

 taken out to light my first fire. Father himself 

 started the custom, and I feared that it might have 

 died out during my absence, with other signs of the 

 seasons that add so much to country living. 



All through the autumn, as the farmers cut the 

 brush from meadow edges or cleared weeds and stub- 

 ble from the corn-fields, fires would be seen at night, 

 the leisure time they took for burning the rubbish. 

 Oftentimes these fires were lighted, and being left to 

 tend themselves, spread, doing much damage, or else 

 a conflagration of house or barn was thought to be 

 merely a brush fire, and so neighbourly aid was with- 

 held. 



For these reasons father had suggested that 

 every one should gather his rubbish as usual, but 

 wait to burn it until the first night of winter, when 

 all the neighbourhood could be out and on the 



